{"id":429,"date":"2012-03-19T20:35:07","date_gmt":"2012-03-19T20:35:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thisbloglife.com\/?p=429"},"modified":"2026-01-08T20:23:45","modified_gmt":"2026-01-08T20:23:45","slug":"white-space-is-not-a-lazy-designers-excuse","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thatkeith.com\/articles\/white-space-is-not-a-lazy-designers-excuse\/","title":{"rendered":"White space is not a lazy designer’s excuse"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

There’s a handy saying that I learned many years ago: “when in doubt, leave it out”.<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

It was said about writing, encouraging people to cut out superfluous waffle, and it is something that’s well worth remembering. It could also be said about designing, particularly when it comes to page layout design.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

White space, sometimes called negative space (well, not all pages are white, right?) is the term for the empty parts of a layout. It isn’t just an excuse for some blank space that the designer couldn’t be bothered to fill; white space is used to make the visual impact of the visible design elements \u2013 text, pictures and other graphics \u2013 more effective. It helps control both the page entry points that a reader goes to when they first see a layout and the route they’re likely to take as they read.<\/p>\n\n\n

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One of the instincts people have when they first start making layouts is to fill the page, almost no matter what. It takes a certain confidence to leave something empty and to use that as part of the design, but that\u2019s a skill that needs to be developed. It\u2019s hard to overemphasise the value of this ability. It makes it easier for readers to find their way through a page\u2019s content by giving a sense of hierarchy and relative importance to different elements, by adding visual dynamic tension and implied movement, and by providing a sense of pace and rhythm to the reading experience. So no, it isn\u2019t about designers being too lazy to bother filling up the page. Not as a rule, at least.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Using layers in your DTP tool of choice can be useful, although we all know it takes effort to work that way too. If you put different elements onto different layers you can do the mental \u2018step back\u2019 and see how the overall arrangement hangs together by hiding and showing things. Use this to set up different treatments and do a bit of mixing and matching.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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