First a brief update

Whilst I don’t usually like to go personal on this blog I feel that a bit of an update come explanation is due. I haven’t been writing at all compared to my usual schedule. There are several reasons for this and I’d like to take a moment to explain why I’ve fallen down the back of the blogging sofa. First up, I’ve just moved which in itself defined the word hectic. I’ve now got a lovely studio space that I’m realising the joy of as it’s attached to my new home - something so great about a large studio you just have to walk a short way to get to.

Along with this my illnesses have come to a peak, I am now waiting for an operation that I should have had years ago whilst I am stable and working well now I have found little time beyond working to commit to this blog. With the move though things really seem to be settling down as I wait for the operation. I plan on now resuming at least a post a week and will see where that goes. Thank you for all of those who stayed with this blog throughout the past few months of silence interspersed with the odd post. With that said let’s get a post done.

Space the human concept

As human’s we have a concept of person space which we seem to seek throughout our lives. We all know the uneasy feeling when someone not close to us invades that space. Our brains seems to have a notion of spacial barriers. In our lives we see good homes as having space, a vast majority of us crave space and “room to breathe”. By the very phrase “room to breathe” we are showing how important space is to us. In design space is just as important. There is always a lot of talk about white space and allowing design to breathe. Just like we need “room to breathe” so does a design.

Clutter ugly

Just think for a moment about the sites you don’t like. I would place money on them being the hectic ones that wouldn’t know white space if it fell on their head. Lack of space in a design is usually hand in hand with over working and too much content. The designer mantra is content is king, but there can be too many kings. Visually there has to be some space in a design for it to make sense. I always like to think of those ‘throw everything at it’ designs as the biggest examples of spacial abuse.

Padding it out

I’ve noticed lately that in my designs no section of content has under 15px of padding - most actually have above that. Good uses of padding lead to space comfort in a design. Often it’s also good to apply a ratio rule to this padding. An interesting use of this padding is in ratios. I’ve seen some very nice uses of this where you have say 30px for the top, bottom and sides and then internally use 15px for header spacing top and bottom. By using ratios you bring in visual hierarchy through spacing. This can produce some very nice spacial relationships in the design that guide the eye through.

Hitting the same point

I’ve laboured the point a little before about the importance of white space but there is a reason my mind is turning to it. Lately, I’ve been viewing a few designs that seem to ignore this basic principle of design. With all the web 2.0 madness some designers seem to have forgotten the ABCs of design - white space really is one of these. No matter what the design or scripting it’s done in, there simply is no excuse to not use white space. In the past I’ve gone through how I like to let designs distil over time and take away from the first versions in my design process. It is in this taking away things like white space come into play. If I look over the last designs I’ve done each and every one of them in the later stages had more space added as the design matured. Good use of white space really is design sensibility and misuse will always result in a lower quality design. Next time you design I’d suggest taking a stage in your revisions where you just focus on the spacial relationships of the design. This way you will soon find the weak and strong areas of the design and take it to the next level.