What is negative space in art

Indeed, everyone from Buddhist scholars to contemporary psychologists has noted that East Asian cultures often emphasize the relationships between things just as much as the things in themselves. This is certainly true of the writing systems of East Asia, where a skilled calligrapher is not merely someone who has mastered the strokes of the characters, but just as equally their relationship to one another and the space around them.

In contrast, North Americans and Europeans have traditionally tended to focus on specific objects rather than on the bigger picture. However, over the last couple of centuries, East Asian philosophy and design principles have had a major influence upon the development of European and American art.

Japanese approaches to design in particular were highly influential on Western Modernism, and clever use of negative space can be found everywhere from the minimalist architectural works of Mies van der Rohe to the evolving repeat-patterns of M. But what about negative space in design? What can it do for you as a designer? Gutters, margins, and the space between columns are all examples of negative space within a graphic design context. Without these elements the discipline would be a lot less effective as a means of visual communication.

Another important example of negative space in graphic design can be found in the discipline of typography. As with calligraphy, good typography is not only about positive forms, but also the spaces between them. For example, a mixture of upper and lower case is much easier to read than ALL CAPS, precisely due to the variation in negative space between letters. Negative space is also a key consideration in logo design.

And when negative space is used creatively here, it can double the complexity of the message transmitted, yet without the logo becoming more complicated. This can be achieved by creating recognizable forms not only in positive areas, but also in negative parts of the logo too; such as between letters.

Some obvious examples of this are the logo of FedEx with its hidden arrow, and that of the book publisher Routledge, which makes use of positive and negative faces to form the letter R. Certainly too much information crammed onto a single page will be hard to take in; and likely also ugly. Sign up to our email list to get the best of the Framer content sent directly to your inbox. Instead negative space in photography is more likely to take the form of the sky, a wall, a sidewalk, a lawn, a forest, a lake - or indeed any other large expanse of relatively uniform color or texture that a photographer might encounter in the world.

For example, rather than photographing an aircraft against the sky, a photographer might see a plane-shaped hole in a blue rectangle. Working in this way can lead to some very strong, graphic compositions. But why is it important that you as a graphic designer understand how negative space works in photography?

Well, aside from the fact that today we are all photographers to a certain degree, most designers also use photography in their work. And photography that makes creative use of negative space can be a real asset to a design project; providing plenty of room to place typography and other graphic elements over the images, without the risk of things becoming cluttered. If you are seeing faces, then you are seeing the black areas as the positive space, and the white area as the negative space.

Positive and Negative Space. What is Positive and Negative Space? Take a look at the image below. For example, do you see faces or a vase?

Examples of uses of positive and negative space Its See the Reality campaign featured a series of stunning posters that make remarkable use of negative space.

The relationship between the negative and positive space was particularly significant here marking the fatal transformation from living to extinct penguins.

It features a stylised snowflake that incorporates the main characters through a clever use of negative space, which many observers might not notice immediately.

The number 1 appears in the negative space between the F and the go-faster stripes. It's easy to interpret but gives a sense of dynamism and speed. Why would a zoo have a sole tree as its logo? Well, look a little closer at the logo for Pittsburgh Zoo and PPG Aquarium, and you'll see that the space around the tree actually forms a gorilla and what looks to us like a lioness.

Can you spot anything else? Negative space doesn't have to be static. When Nike wanted to draw attention to the ultralight support in its Air Max trainers, ManvsMachine delivered a campaign that showed this through a series of visual metaphors inspired by scenarios encountered on an everyday run. Rather than use an actual Air Max, it employs a trainer-shaped piece of negative space to suggest air. And very clever it is too.

The Barcelona-based team used eye-popping primary colours and a clever use of negative space that creates a 3D effect. It's easy to become desensitised to tragic news stories, but this video for the World Food Programme drives home the plight of refugees in a very powerful way. Designed by negative space master Noma Bar and animated by Ale Accini, the second video entitled 'Symbols' uses stunning visual shorthand in its plea to help stop hunger and start peace. It's emotively narrated by Liam Neeson.

With a passion for creative thinking, he creates art that's conceptual, surreal and fun in a simplistic and unique way. A whole section of his website is dedicated to the art of negative space and he has tons of fantastic examples of how the concept can be used to great creative effect.

His work often shows that you can often take a lot of liberty with sizes and form when using negative space. A similar idea to number one on our list, while the Guild of Food Writers logo carves a spoon out of a pen nib, Paragon International carved palm trees out of a fork to convey a sense of place in this logo for a restaurant in Oman. This list wouldn't be complete without mentioning perhaps the most famous use of negative space in a logo.

The white arrow between the E and the X in the FedEx logotype can never be forgotten once you've noticed it.