All artists know that the space you present in your work falls into two categories. There’s positive space, where the actual art takes place (for the most part) and negative space, which is usually devoid of any art. While most people think the positive space is where you want to place all your focus, successful artists know negative space is just as important. This is especially true in web design.
When you’re building a page, it can become easy to try to fill it up with as much, well, stuff as possible. This can be content, links for other areas, art and, of course, ads.
But the truth is this often creates a thoroughly displeasing piece of work for your visitor. And, in fact, it can often lead to visitors leaving due simply to their confusion. Take a look at Google, for example. You couldn’t ask for a simpler homepage. Even sites like Facebook, which are crawling with content, make use of negative space to differentiate all the positive areas.
Fortunately, negative space can be used for all types of websites. If you’re business sells a product, you can use it to highlight the item itself. People who run blogs can use it to direct attention to their content. Even landing pages can wisely use negative space to make sure the reader’s attention is strategically targeted.
While negative space has long been the focus of artists, web designers would be wise to take note. Clogging a page with nothing but positive space simply won’t work as other designers become smarter about their choices.