Composition and layout

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Whitespace and negative space

Lesson 11 of 27 in Composition and layout.

‘Space’ Visual element of Graphic Design / Design theory Ep6/45 [Beginners guide to Graphic Design] · Gareth David Studio
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White space en.wikipedia.org is the portion of a page left unmarked. Margins, the gutter between columns, the space between lines of type, the air around a photograph. The name comes from paper. It is still called white space on a black page, which tells you the term was always about the absence of marks rather than about the colour of anything in particular. Negative space en.wikipedia.org is the same material looked at the other way, as a shape with an outline of its own.

crowdedthe same element, givenroom
The same element crowded, then given room.
A woman in a red sari sits on a yellow chair holding a small mirror while a barber in a striped white dhoti and cap leans in to clean her ear. Both figures are painted in flat yellow with grey shading and long swept outlines, and the paper around them is left completely bare.
A Kalighat painting of a barber cleaning a woman's ear. The paper around the two figures is left empty, and that emptiness is what makes them stand out.Barber Cleaning a Woman's Ear. Unrecorded Kalighat painter, Calcutta. Cleveland Museum of Art, 2003.117.Cleveland Museum of Art, 2003.117/CC0 1.0
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  1. Question 1, locked

    What is negative space?

    • A shape in its own right, which you compose
    • The part of the page left over after everything is placed
    • Margin that should be reduced where possible
  2. Question 2, locked

    Which of these words means this? “The shape of the emptiness itself, read as a shape rather than as an absence.”

    • Hierarchy
    • Interruption
    • Negative space
    • International Typographic Style
  3. Question 3, locked

    Which of these words means this? “The Japanese word for the interval that gives a whole its form. The gap counted as a thing, not as a leftover.”

    • Scanpath
    • Ma
    • Column grid
    • Panel

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