5 Examples — The Other 'White Space'

Within the lexicon of

#highfalutin #designspeak,

has 'white space' lost its special sauce?

I desperately need to find out what 'white space' even is. So I query my Creative Hero, because she taught a couple of Design 101 courses when she was a Henry Hope Radford School of Fine Arts IU grad student. Also, she is the least 'falutin' person I know.*

“Hey,” name omitted (she’s not on LinkedIn). “In the context of design, what is your definition of white space?” In a refreshingly non-#designspeak reply, she offers, “White space is

a place to rest your eyes .”

As always, she is 100% correct.*

In recent times, the phrase 'white space' began infiltrating our collective #bizspeak.** Like some creepy vernacularial [sic] disease, it spread from Creatives to patient zero. Any daring fools asking to overstuff the precious designs #UI #UX and print were repeatedly and publicly berated into submission and infected (er, whitespaced) soon thereafter. Today, the phrase is co-opted, overused, and exploited — by those same patient zeroes! — as a way to avoid responsibility for generating new content.

Well then, seems time for Creatives to #reclaim and #reinvent this overused and misunderstood phrase:

Hereupon, in lieu of its conventional definition (“elegant, underserved areas in a design composition”), the phrase 'white space' shall comprise a broader category known as

un-design .

Below, each of the five examples of 'un-design' [white space] show how to avoid designing stuff that doesn't really need to be designed in the first place, yet maintain brand efficacy. The examples are chosen for whenever you find yourself, or your staff, filling spreadsheets with billable tasks "just because" — these really didn’t consume much 'design bandwidth' whatsoever:

Example 1 # the digital banner for this article (above)

Notes: For this LinkedIn article, the top banner (above) uses the #penultimate #un-design font Comic Sans for the "F.P.O." lettering, colored Safety Green. Since I have already rambled on too much in this article, the next four examples will be left to speak for themselves, aside from short #wysiwyg blurbs.

Example 2 # digital cover art for "Winning the Oil Endgame"

Notes: For this book cover artwork, I had the privilege of working with the ridiculously talented humble, generous, and digital artist Ian Naylor.

Although Sir Naylor and I pored over many details, the hardest decision — where to position each of the pieces on the chessboard — was instantaneously decided for us by RMI cofounder Amory Lovins. “We can just use the endgame position from the 13th game of the 1972 Fischer-Spassky world title match.” Well, duh! surely everyone knows that game by rote. Detecting my blank expression, Amory furthered, “I’ll call my physics buddy Roald Sagdeev for his advice.”

Example 3 # homepage UI for Berkshire Hathaway Inc.

Is BerkshireHathaway.com deliberately un-designed? You decide. In fact, say anything you want in the Comments below. (Pretty sure Mr. Buffett made up his mind about it long ago, and he is quite comfortable with his decision.)

Example 4 # homepage UX for Datto, Inc.

Notes: The #developers at Datto.com are well aware that their website audience skews toward #techies. Datto are techies, too. Techies tend to have a sardonic sense of humor, which lends itself well to @ntics like this #UI behind-the-scenes #UX:

Even though #ASCIIart is pretty much an un-design format to begin with, the decision to add this 'lite' memo (shown above) to their hidden code is based on Datto wanting to create HUE (a Happy User Experience) among their Users.

Example 5 # the power of un-design stumps Google

Note: Irony abounds, even in the 'white space' dominion of the Interwebosphere. The robot looks very hung over.

All the above are good examples of un-design strategies that thoughtfully avoid typical public perception #rabbitholes.

Hmmm... 'thoughtful avoidance' sounds like a very good idea right now, especially during summer vacay.

“Gar?on, s’il te pla?t, de plus un

Whitespace # on the rocks, stirred, then shaken.

Merci!”

* By definition, Painters are always in a design-neutral stance. Also, they are generally LinkedOut. My query is yet another blatant attempt to fetch cred from one of my by-far-hipper-than-me Fine Artist chums. Furthermore, her esteem is derived from wearing the MFA pants in the conversation. My pants are merely BFA — #boxershorts, if you will.

** See the hugely popular LinkedIn article Which 'Business Bulls**t' phrases annoy you the most? by Steve Blakeman (and his Commentistadors, et al.). Also see his forthcoming book Billy Bullsh!t Talks Business (co-authored by Mike Adams).

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A P P E N D I X

undesign.org — Graphic design bad boy Tibor Kalman (r.i.p.) was "aware of the great potential of the medium (as evidenced in an interview with Steven Heller in Design Dialogues), yet marveled that the Web was filling up with useless corporate sites, meaningless design, and marketing drivel."

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