Negative space

In the first week's class, Mrs. Maddy has mentioned about the concept of negative space in design as a tool to create something called.. (not find a word now ^^) In an example about Bitis shoes, she has shown out that every negative space is $$$ not only because of its cost of papers in advertising or marketing but also its effects of defining products' value. To be specific, one product of shoes on an advertising paper will let you know that the product is much more expensive and valuable than one which is listed in a page with many of shoes in small scale.

One way to keep things in mind is to do more research about this aspect.

Let's get started with a simple definition of negative space "What's negative space?"

Well, negative space is thing that is negative in an image. In this case, it is empty space surrounding one or more subjects inside an image. The empty space in an image is as important as the main subjects themselves. According to en.wikipedia.org (June, 2007), it is said that a good designer makes proper use of negative space to create a good composition in design. For that reason, negative space can be seen as an element in composition. So, you must defend yourself a lot when deciding to eliminate the space by adding other things into your design ( it was said by Maddy in week 2 class as she emphasize the importance of negative space which should be seen as a somewhat sister). In my opinion, the negative space is not special because of the above I have mentioned, but because of its empty result in resting for the reader eyes (so that you can feel free to observe other positive elements which contains messages that the designer want to transfer).

Back to the effect of negative space in advertising or marketing, I have found some ads that take advantage of negative space in order to define the value of the products.

The first one is an advertising of Bank One, a well-known and successful bank. They use an image of a confident business woman in big scale from the left. That is the first one they want to transfer to the customers and is the one that attract your eyes first, then the "BANK1ONE" in blue, the big one on the top and the smaller letter on the right. You can see that they all covered by negative space.

The second one is an ad from Crest organization. A big toothbrush at the center, covered by other information and the negative space in cyan.

The third one is an ad from an insurance company named USAA.


an ad from BankOne (2005, Armstrong & Kotler)


an ad from BankOne (2005, Armstrong & Kotler)


an ad from USAA (2005, Armstrong & Kotler)


References:

Wikipedia, 2007, Negative space, Wikipedia, June 2007, viewed on 08 July 2007, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Negative_space

Armstrong, G & Kotler, P 2005, 'Marketing: Managing Profitable Custimer Relationship' , in Marketing I An Introduction, 7th edn, Pearson Education Inc., NewYork, pp.21

Armstrong, G & Kotler, P 2005, 'Segmentation, Targeting, and Positioning: Building the Right Relationship with the Right Customers' , in Marketing I An Introduction, 7th edn, Pearson Education Inc., NewYork, pp.187

Armstrong, G & Kotler, P 2005, 'Managing Marketing Information' , in Marketing I An Introduction, 7th edn, Pearson Education Inc., NewYork, pp.111