POWER OF NEGATIVE SPACE

Pic.: Dilip V.

Presently, I am working on a book. My son, who has done studies in Animation and designing, and who is working in Pune, is helping me in designing this book. Now, I have not done any formal studies in printing and designing. But, despite this handicap, I have been able to publish more than twenty inspirational books for The Dawn Club. I am blissfully ignorant about 95 percent of the vocabulary which a printer, publisher or book-designer would be using. But, that’s fun … Ignorance can be truly bliss!

“I want more ‘white space’,” I was telling my son on phone, last night. 

“Yes, dad, you mean to say you want more ‘negative space’ on the page, right?”

“Negative space?” I reacted in surprise, “Son, I want more ‘open space’ … The page should be less crowded, less clustered.”

“Yes dad, we, professionals, call that ‘white’ or ‘open’ space as ‘negative’ space,” my son explained to me with loads of patience. “The space with images and write-up is called ‘positive space’.

“I didn’t know that!” I confessed sheepishly, “I have been publishing books and magazines for more than twenty-five years now!”

“That’s okay dad, “my son consoled me, “Nobody expects you to … Work is important.”

I heaved a huge sigh of relief, “Thank God”!

The judicious use of negative space is the key for great designing … Creative guys know it well. In fact, the might of the positive space fully depends on how well the negative space is used’

Alright. Let me shift the focus light inside me … my mind, my heart.

There, too, I find negative and positive space … And, as in designing, in life, too, the negative space has a telling effect on the quality of the positive space … It depends on how I value the negative space and how effectively I use it to enhance the quality of the positive space in me …

This I knew, for sure … in this school called ‘The School of Life-designing’!

GERALD D’CUNHA