At the same time minimalism is in fashion out there, there is so much content to put on a single web page that too often we see cluttered layouts around the web.
Space to breath, also called White Space or Negative Space is a very delicate part of design and is directly responsible for the state of mind the reader of the reader.
I was reading a great post of Tom about The White Space Paradox and he cites:
In western culture we associate uncluttered spaces with good taste
(Newark1)
Now, I think that this is not entirely true. First because some eastern cultures have a very minimalistic artistic tradition as well, and for the other part, western culture sometimes really likes some chaos.
While the modernist movement was cemented over Mies van der Rohe’s well know phrase “less is more”, all the punk movement was created over visual chaos.
And by punk movement I don’t mean the crazy guys with random safety pins, but I also mean Vivienne Westwood who build a whole new aesthetics that is still alive inside our design.
What is true, is that white space helps us to relax and read (which is not what the punk movement was intending, of course).
The golden rule of white space doesn’t lie in a great amount of white space, but in an adequate amount.
Too many things flying around the text, like birds of pray, can’t but disturb you and hurry you up, like door knocks when you are in the bathroom. But an excess of whitespace can be just as weird as being in the desert with no soul at sight.
White space should help you follow a certain flow. Typographic line separation, also know as leading, for instance has the purpose of aid the view to find its destiny when the eyes move from the end of a line to the beginning of the next one. A well chosen line width does just that.
As another one of Mies van der Rohe’s famous quotations says “God Lives in the details”.
So, the point is that there has to be some balance, because minimality comes together with quality. Increasing the focus an element has, necessarily should reflect on the quality of it, because there is no point in focus a bad or poor element.
Minimality has to come hand in hand with the ability of being succinct.
Minimality may be associated with luxury, yes, but that only happens if the few elements that compose the design are able to tell the whole story by themselves. Minimality demands great ability in condensing. Otherwise, empty space makes just empty design.
I think the right amount of white space in web pages is that one that provokes that cousy feeling of knowing that you can easily navigate within the page, but that no one is knocking at your door trying to hurry up from what you are trying to do. Which in a blog should mean read, of course.
Guilherme
is a Web Designer focused on web standards and the web ahead of us.
4 Comments
El ojo, que es muy hábil, completa cualquier deficiencia del diseño, inclusive corrige errores de texto, sintaxis y hasta letras faltantes o puestos en sentido inverso.
Es de esperar que pueda reconocer un diseño realizado apretadamente, pero se siente más feliz cuando el diseño es claro, tiene espacios para recorrer la línea principal del mensaje y no tiene que detenerse en los recovecos del camino.
Eso de que lo breve si bueno… también puede aplicarse al diseño. Poco, claro y bueno es siempre mejor que mucho, engorroso y saturado. El ojo se fatiga buscando las formas que se mezclan ocultándose unas a otras. Y como sabemos, la fatiga no es buena. Si se colocan muchos productos amontonados en una vidriera sólo se logrará que el paseant no distinga a ninguno, y pase de largo. Pocos productos y uno destacado desatarán su interés o curiosidad, tal vez entre y se interese, además, por otras ofertas.
El mensaje debe ser claro, tal vez asociado a una idea central, pero la estructura del mensaje debe ser secundaria… el mensaje es la cosa primordial. Cuando el público comenta lo bueno de una publicidad pero no recuerda el producto, se puede tratar de una excelente obra de arte, pero su mensaje, que pasa a segundo o último término, permanecerá oculto.
Sobre el clic en el botón de si uno es humano, lo puse porque sería muy largo de explicar el género correspondiente.
Derfel
É quase análogo ao papel do silêncio na música…
Because many readers of this blog don’t understand either Spanish or Portuguese, I will try to make my own [resumed] translation of the comments above:
@Cadarn -
@Renato -
@Cadarn - Thank you very much for the inspired comment.
In fact, it is true, it is all about helping the readers to do what both you (the writer) and them want to do, that is: read.
@Renato - Yes, you are right, it is exactly the same kind of thing, it a very good analogy.
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