You know what one of the best marketing tools is? And it’s also free or dang cheap? And fits the less-is-more idea?
Whitespace
Recently, we were finishing up a new design on a site. The new design was amazing. It was crisp and clean and so easy to read and easy for clients to navigate through to a successful visit. Why? Because we plenty of whitespace.
Whitespace is simply the portions of a design piece that are left unused. In the design I was referring to before, the client wanted us to remove the majority. I believe the line the client used once was “hey there’s some extra space there, what would we just put there?” Whitespace, or those unused areas (doesn’t have to be white in color), provide the marketing piece some room to breathe and live a little. It allows us to craft a piece that can easily walk a user through from start to finish and guide their eyes to where we need them to go.
Can you go to the extreme? Sure, I guess. You could make a user scroll for a good long time on a website. On a print piece you would run out of paper eventually. But having everything jammed in right next to each other takes away from everything. When you cram more and more and more into a design you are inevitably left with simply less and less and less.
Want a great example of whitespace? www.google.com. What is the one thing Google really wants you to do on their homepage? Search for something. Because of all the whitespace in that design, where is your eye pulled to – the search bar. Consider my hometown newspaper, www.greenbaypressgazette.com. Not as much whitespace, not even close. Now there’s a lot of things vying for attention.
If it’s a print piece, again you can run out of room on the paper, but you really shouldn’t have all that much to say on one flyer or banner stand. If you do, you’re likely missing the purpose of that medium. Whitespace is a wonderful marketing technique and when put to use can have a considerable impact on the overall success of a marketing design project. And it doesn’t even cost much (if anything) to use, just a little planning.