Negative space in logo design It’s hard to beat a clever use of negative space in logo design. Here are 35 or so logos I enjoy that use white space well, along with the designers/agencies responsible.
A.G. Low Construction logo By Rebecca Low
Martin Newcombe Property Maintenance logo By buddy
Nexcite logo By Amore Via Blair Via Blair Thomson
American Institute of Architects Center logo By Pentagram
Ogden Plumbing logo By Astuteo
WWF By Sir Peter Scott, modified by Landor
FreemanWhite logo By Malcolm Grear Designers
The Brand Union logo By The Brand Union
Egg n Spoon logo (same day couriers) By Thoughtful
Human logo By Social UK
Dolphin House logo By Ico Design
Eaton logo By Lippincott (thanks, Brendan)
Elefont logo By Logo Motive Designs
USA Network logo By Peloton Design
CultureBus logo By Pentagram
Carrefour logo (thanks Rianna Rianna ) Original design examined by Miles Newlyn (thanks
Henri Ehrhart monogram (shameless, aren’t I?) View the design process on David Airey dot com
Sinkit logo By smashLAB
Guild of Food Writers logo By 300million
ED logo By Gianni Bortolotti
Blade logo By Subversive Design
Premier Catering logo By Madhouse Via Logolog Via Logolog
The Waterways Trust logo By Pentagram
FedEx logo By Lindon Leader while at Landor
Knoll logo By NB: Studio Via Logolog Via Logolog
Ryan Biggs Associates logo By id29
Hartford Whalers logo By Cummings & Good (thanks, Jeff )
Conception logo By The Chase
Yoga Australia logo By Roy Smith Design
Hands On Network logo By Duffy & Partners
MyFonts logo By Underware
Vanderbilt University logo By Malcolm Grear Designers
Recycle Taiwan logo By do you know?
NBC logo By Steff Geissbuhler while at Chermayeff & Geismar
New Bedford Whaling Museum logo By Malcolm Grear Designers
Mouse logo By Johnson Banks — Update: 06 September 2010 Here’s another nice idea just featured, for a company called Landfit. Update: 05 March 2011 And another — Snooty Peacock. Peacock.
How To Actually Use Negative Space As Design Element Posted in: Web Design
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Stephen Galang
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December 3rd, 2010
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Negative space is an important element in making website layouts and logos although it is very tricky to combine negative space in designing but once you are able to do it, it is not something to be overlooked or avoided. I usually call it white space, and to be honest many new designers usually make a mistake of creating chunky websites with too much information in it and without any spacing. But believe me spacing does wonders, for even young designers – you can look professional quickly with minimal website..just put less content use negative space and you’ll be more successful than others starting just out.
But note - great design takes all the space available into consideration, consideration, both used used and unused elements.
What is Negative Space? Negative Space is also called white space. These are spaces without content although they are called white space, “Negative Space” doesn’t have to be white. It can be any color, it just doesn’t have any content. Negative space is also a design factor although it is not easily recognizable, basically the use of negative space is to add symmetry to your layout and make it look clean, natural for visitors. Even if your website has great content but will have a poorly designed layout, it just won’t work – you will fail to create effective website, I think good layout design and native navigation through it is even more important than content!
Negative Spaces Revealed! – Examples Here’s an example of an optical illusion that uses negative space.
It’s a chalice but with the white space you see the faces of two people facing each other . This is how you spot negative space, with only 1 object but can be interpreted as two or more different things.
Negative Space in Web Designing Designing a webpage layout layout includes objects, objects, text and images in an attractive manner. This also includes negative space – the spacing of objects from one another. You don’t make a webpage layout with images that overlaps with another image right? That is how negative space is used. It keeps the viewer’s eyes focused on the objects. Negative space should be used to balance or align objects in a design to make it more appealing to the viewers. Filling your navigation with big fat buttons might be a good idea but just because there is a space that could be filled doesn’t mean you should place something in it. For navigation I would suggest just to use small icons with little but noticeable text just to make it sleek, simple..and don’t don’t forget to use nice spacing. Here are two images that I made to demonstrate how negative space can affect web page layouts. It’s a typical webpage template that has a navigation bar/buttons, logo, content area, and Latest News part. I simplified it to black and white so that we can easily spot negative space.
Let’s identify the parts: •
The upper left black box is where you put your page title or logo.
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The three boxes are your navigation buttons
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The rectangle on the left is where your main content are.
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The rectangle on the right is where your latest news are.
Here is a negative-spaced layout. See the consistency of the spacing? You can see the objects neatly and can focus on them with ease. The spacing between the objects is consistent, producing producing a good design.
Now here is the not-so-negativ not-so-negative-spaced e-spaced design, although a bit exaggerated. The navigation boxes aren’t aligned on anything below, the part where you put your page title or logo is a little large and occupies the upper left of the page, the main content occupies the left to the center portion of the page and the latest news part might be distracting for the scrollbar. This is just an example of how negative space can destroy a web layout. You can easily spot the inconsistencies inconsistenc ies in the spacing of objects, it might create distractions to viewers.
Negative Space in images. Here are two images that I also made, one with much negative space and the other not so much.
You can focus on “the box” easily on this image because the object is not occupying the whole page.
You find it difficult to focus on “the box” since you can’t look at the square and the text at the same time because the object is too large and it occupies the page completely. That is how negative space works, it should help viewers focus on the objects that they should see instead of making their eyes look all over the place. If that happens they might not see what they are looking for in the website making them close their browser tab or go to another website.
Considering Negative Negative space in Making logos Nothing can beat a logo with a clever mix of design and negative space, you include 2 or more objects in only 1 logo.
See the negative space between the
E
and
x
that looks like an arrow ?
Here are some logos that uses negative space effectively.
1. Martini House Two wine glass combined forms a shape of a house.
Image by EBrown by EBrown
2. Wooden House
A tree with a negative space shaped like a chimney and a roof.
Image by iskender by iskender
3. ATACK An upside down tack and a triangular white space forming a letter A.
Image by Logomotive by Logomotive
4. Babelfish Letter B with a white space in the middle that is cleverly shaped to look like a fish.
Image by Rokac by Rokac
5. Paint the City White space that is shaped like skyscrapers while the red color forms the shape of a bucket.
Image by HitByReindeer by HitByReindeer
6. Yoga Australia The shape of Australia’s territory/map is formed inside the leg and the arched back.
Image by RoySmith by RoySmith
7. Helping Hands for Pets Here shows the shape of pony and a cat in green portion, a dog and a bird formed by the white space.
Image by PixelJuice by PixelJuice
8. Wiesinger Music Piano keys that forms the letters W and M.
Image by NEXQUNYX by NEXQUNYX
9. Spartan Golf An arc that looks like what’s on the top of a Spartan helmet and a golfer that forms a Spartan face.
Image by Lexlogo40513 by Lexlogo40513
10. Quotekid Single opening quote and a single closing quote combined to form a face.
Image by tabithakristen by tabithakristen
Negative Is Actually Positive! Negative space can be really tricky to incorporate in designs and especially in logos but once you are able to pull it off it can really make your website easier to view or help you in advertising your product. What’s your experience designing layouts using white space, some valuable tricks you learned you would like to share here? Open to discussion!
