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White Space and Simplicity: An Overview

January 12th, 2007 in How-To | 29 Comments

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Last year we’ve seen a lot of simple, even minimalistic designs, which impress not with the amount of presented information but with the way the information is actually presented. Complex layouts are giving way to simple 2-col- or 3-col layouts, which usually have large amount of white space without any content whatsoever.

Indeed, the importance of both white space and simplicity shouldn’t be underrated. Used correctly, they can enhance the performance of a web-site, improve readability and make a great first impression. Recently Mark Boulton has written an insightful article about Whitespace and its importance in web design. Very well written, it describes in a very simple, but clear way, how to deal with white space in practice and how to use it in your web-projects. We’ve collected some more articles on this topic. So what do we have?

Screenshot

Simplicity:

White Space (Negative Space):

Simplicity and White Space in Practice:

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  1. 1.

    Miles (January 13th, 2007, 1:23 am)

    I really enjoy every Smashing Mag post, this one is very dear to me, I am working on designing my new homepage and modifying a WP template to make it more user friendly (and eye friendly).

    Great post again!

    Miles
    Link [www.mileswilliams.net]

  2. 2.

    Uzbek (January 15th, 2007, 7:16 pm)

    I got a feeling that you guys reading my mind. Everything I want to learn or need to develop/enhance my project pops on here next day.

    Great list and great work.

    Uzbek
    - Link [www.uzforum.com]

  3. 3.

    Pablo Rosales (May 6th, 2007, 10:28 am)

    I’m new to smashing magazine, but i could keep clicking the previous posts and never stop saying SMASHING!

  4. 4.

    Jeff (August 31st, 2007, 3:49 am)

    awesome, thanks for these they are very useful!

  5. 5.

    Budhi Nandika (September 20th, 2007, 2:24 pm)

    Very useful informations, most people like simplicity in design, layout and more user friendly.

    I’ll use all the articles for my projects and to redesign my own site.

    Thank you and keep these great work.

  6. 6.

    vreme (September 23rd, 2007, 8:47 pm)

    Yes it shure has to be simple but the problem is when designing a website for companies they all think that it MUST be complicated with a lot of flash animations etc. How to tell someone that the simpler the better if they all think they know everything?

  7. 7.

    Bodrum (January 8th, 2008, 7:59 am)

    I got a feeling that you guys reading my mind. Everything I want to learn or need to develop/enhance my project pops on here next day.

  8. 8.

    jd (February 8th, 2008, 7:11 pm)

    i can’t imagine live whitout smashing!

  9. 9.

    sandie sørensen (March 10th, 2008, 7:23 am)

    nice articles- but I would much rather have seen a lot of examples on the minimalistic design with lots of whitespace…
    I’m very visuel in that way…

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