Unclutter Your Advertising Get Found In White Space
Sunday, April 18th, 2010Get found in White Space
The less is more philosophy often refers to minimalism. Stemming from architecture and quickly adopted by interior design, minimalism is expressed by simple, clean designs, utilizing basic elements of line, form, color and light to compliment negative space. In minimalist design the negative space is as much a part of the design as the design elements. Hence, the negative space actually becomes a design element in it’s own right. Fascinating. Right? Well maybe if your Japanese or Scandinavian but us Americans, we’re clutter bugs. It seems we’re not satisfied unless we’re filling up negative space. Which is fine if your cluttering up your house, your yard, even the trunk of your car. But taking a clutter bug mentality into your advertising and marketing space can seriously hinder your chances of getting noticed and sometimes, even being taken seriously by prospective clients.
What to avoid.
When creating ads and marketing materials keep in mind that it is impossible to sell everything in one ad or marketing piece (unless of course you are doing catalog, then the budgets the limit). If you take the “everything and the kitchen sink approach your ad will look “everything and the kitchen sink.” These cluttered ads tend to get overlooked in magazines filled with ads. While ads with white space provide a break in the clutter. That break gets noticed, which begins the desired sequence of events:
Get Noticed
Get Read
Get Acted Upon
If the thought of white space has your knees knocking, and I know for many of you it does, just think of those wildly popular Kettle One advertisements with just a black headline on a white background – that’s all, nothing else. They usually started with “Dear Kettle One drinker”, followed by a one liner at the very top of an all white page. Turn heads they did. Those ads not only introduced then to the US market but virtually catapulted them to vodka stardom. Sure some may have called the ads pretentious but far be it from me to say pretension can’t be brilliant.
