Why negative space matters

[bellatrys]

One of the biggest problems working in prepress is trying to convince customers not to pack a book's worth of type into a business card or a quarter-page - or eighth, or sixteenth-page ad. "More is not always more effective," we try to tell them, but all they can see is X$ divided by Y inches, and dammit they're going to get their money's worth!

Comments

[voxwoman]

I see the Dr. Bronner's School of Advertising is still going strong. (and he's also got some quotation mark abuse, too)

I used to try to convince bands to make their logos in legible text. I haven't been terribly successful at it.

Oh come on it's as clear as day!

[fridgepunk]

"Write in a vote
MAX DARBOUZE
for flibbertygibbets
county commissoner
peanutnostrilhappyclams"

Oddly enough all of those rules also apply to icons.

[randwolf]

"We fashion wood for a house,/ but it is the emptiness inside / that makes it livable."

[nenya_kanadka]

*heeee*

This makes overuse of Comic Sans (a pet peeve of mine) seem positively good design. But thin, high lettering in a font that isn't meant for it ('cause you tried to squish in too much text sideways) just looks Wrong, and Unprofessional. I can't be the only person who thinks to herself (rightly or wrongly), "If A-1 Service Company can't even do their ads decently, how do I know they're good at performing [service A]?"

[fledgist]

I do a variant of this with my students on a regular basis. This has to do with Power Point presentations, which I require them to do. I tell them not to slap a huge pile of text onto the screen all at once. So, what do they do? Slap wads of text onto the screen all at once.