pure design: white space

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The forty-ninth "fable" from Mario Garcia's "Pure design"

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Page 1: Pure design: White space
Page 2: Pure design: White space

mario garcia

144

White spaceMore often than not, after a redesign is complete, readers think the

publication is printed on better paper. This, of course, is rarely the

case. What has changed is that white space has been incorporated,

thus giving an impression of a cleaner environment.

White space is important. Like punctuation in a sentence, it allows

thoughts to flow without running into each other. It is no longer true that

only feature or supplement pages should utilize white space; even news

pages benefit from more breathing room. I incorporate white space in all

pages of my projects, and at some level, the reader appreciates it.

Beside the obvious, there are many places to employ white space:

Between lines of headlines or summaries.

Between photographs and captions.

Between subheads and the text that follow them.

Between a graphic and surrounding elements.

Around the box that packages a story or photo essay.

Directly under the header of the page (two lines of white space

recommended here)

Between ad space and editorial space.

White space is the most silent of aids to the designer.

Page 3: Pure design: White space

pure design

145

Forceful silence: Brunch, the Sunday supplement ofthe Jyllands Posten in Copenhagen, emphasizes bigphotographs and long text, and buffers it all withgenerous white space. If not cushioned by whitespace, the pieces would be less inviting.

Page 4: Pure design: White space

mario garcia

146

The power of white: When Miller Mediaredesigned Barra’s web site, simplicity wasthe goal. Barra, a maker of complex risk-management tools, was scaring off userswith an information-dense site. Designersspent the majority of time working witheditors to whittle down the information tothe essentials, then applied a clean, opendesign with white space at a premium.

Page 5: Pure design: White space

pure design

147

Less is more: During a change in editors,Miller Media was asked to update the lookand feel of House Beautiful, an interiordesign magazine that had seen market shareslipping. Lead designer John Miller strippeddown the stuffy covers, concentrating onsimple, iconic images. The logo was redonein a classic serif; typography was elevated tostarker, more elegant levels. And to completethe look, liberal amounts of white space wasused on every page.