web design
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web design | Graphic Web Design |
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WhitespaceCan I confess something? My real goal is not to be a web programmer. My REAL goal is to be a screenwriter. That's actually what I got my Bachelor's in -- Film, with an emphasis on screenwriting. And, you'll be happy to know, I recently optioned my first script. If they actually BUY the thing -- well, let's not get ahead of ourselves. I mention it because there's a rumor I heard about what some readers will do when the get a script for the first time. They turn it so the text is upside-down, then they flip through it and see how it looks. To most people, it would look like a bunch of upside-down words. But what these guys are doing is looking at the whitespace. Why? Because in screenwriting, they say, there must be a proper balance of dialogue to action. And action fills the page, where as dialogue is printed in narrow columns in the center of the page, leaving much more space on the side. By gauging the whitespace, they can see if a writer is dialogue-heavy, action-heavy, or well-balanced. I've never been a reader, or known a reader who did that, but it makes for a nice rumor. Spread it! Whitespace is good. Remember that. Yes, people come to your site looking for information. But do you like coming to a page that is so dense with text that you feel overwhelmed? No, you don't. That's why newspapers have 6 columns of writing with tons of "wasted" margins between, rather than just printing the stories out across the page. That's why brochures give bulleted lists with lots of space around points, rather than packing the same information in a dense, beefy paragraph. That's why teachers ask for double-spacing in reports. Sure, they say it's so they can make marks, but have they ever marked your paper more than would be able to fit in the margins? (If so, lucky you -- most teachers start getting burned out after their first thousand papers graded.) That's why, I believe, Google was able to overtake Yahoo, Alta Vista, Hotbot, and every other search engine out there. The search results were not that different, especially after those other sites started licensing results from Google. But you visit Google's page, and it's like a bright, clean welcome mat. You go to Yahoo! and you feel like they're trying to advertise to you from several companies at once. Which, of course, they are. So be generous with your whitespace. Use margins. Leave empty areas to balance out the dense ones. Now, back to my screenwriting. |