Designer: Here is the completed design.
Client: Looks great! Now let's fill in all that empty space
Designer: ...
The above scenario is familiar to all designers. That empty space is the "whitespace" or "negative space", and it simply refers to the unused space in the design. Whitespace can be between paragraphs, lines of text, blocks of text, elements, images, margins, and paddings, etc. It often gets tempting to make use of whitespace as much as possible and squeeze all the good stuff together . But what good would it be if content is packed with useful information but readers have difficulties consuming it? Is exhaustive content really worth sacrificing readability and understandability for? Here are a few reasons why whitespace is so important to great and effective designs:
1. It improves readability
Blocks of text are very tiring to look at, let alone read through them. If you don't give text space to breathe, the readers are going to lose attention and skip over the text or abandon the content altogether. If the text, images, and other elements are crowded, the content is going to be very noisy and we need content to be loud but not noisy.
2. It helps the reader navigate the content
Whitespace helps support the hierarchy of the contents and guides the reader to navigate the content in a logical order. The empty space is a great tool for helping readers absorb information better.
3. It is effective in grabbing the attention of the reader
The way you can position information and elements affects the way the content is perceived in the mind of the reader. Symmetrically placed information will be memorable and pleasing to look at whereas asymmetrically organised content will draw attention. Elements will stand out more if there is more space to breathe around them. Don't make the text bigger, make the space wider.
4. It helps organise information
Space is also helpful in organising information in a logical order. It can help readers understand how things relate to each other. For example, space can be used to group similar elements together, create contrast between different elements, and separate content in their logical order.
5. It makes things stand out
Readers can get easily overwhelmed when there is a lot of information. Whitespace will help rest the eyes and focus the attention on the information that is the most important. Usually, clients ask for titles to be bigger and bigger without realising that bigger text doesn't translate to effectiveness. Just like the pauses are important in speech, space is important in design. Dramatic pauses always make dialog more interesting and well-used whitespace will always make great content stand out.
6. It increases interaction and engagement
Content that is easy to consume and pleasing to look it will always hold the attention of the reader longer. This will make the reader interact more with the content and increase engagement.
A balance between whitespace and information is what makes content great! Content can be more powerful and the messages will stand out more if whitespace is used correctly. While seemingly empty, space can have an enormous impact in the success of the designs and in the way that brands are perceived. Playing with space can help highlight what matters to you the most.