Design Concepts #1: Spatial Awareness

Posted by Brendan Clarke on July 16th, 2009

Spatial awareness is basically a visual trick of the mind, it can make a design a masterpiece and it can destroy it with just millimeters of difference. It is the primary and essential part of minimalism and most modern design makes use of manipulating spatial awareness (awareness of space) for aesthetic purposes. Feng shui and the entire concept of ‘zen’ (as the buzz word for the modern visual style) is based primarily on spatial awareness. All in all, it’s very important in design.

At the very core, it’s a very simple concept. Use lots of space, keep things clean and minimal. Less is more. That said, sticking a giant space inbetween two objects certainly isn’t the answer, nor will it be a quick solution to a design problem. It’s more than space, it’s a judgement on the right amount of space. You can easily add too much (and also too little).

Your brain basically fills in the gaps where there is space, it creates a pattern, it visualizes and organizes itself. You may not even notice it’s happening.

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Posted on Thursday, July 16th, 2009 at 1:21 am, filed under Art, Design, Tutorials. Follow any responses to this entry using the RSS 2.0 feed.

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