Sunday Helper - White Space

Have you ever sat down with yourself and truly analyzed what your scrapping style is?  And have you thought about how much it's changed, developed or advanced as you've gotten more experienced?  Maybe you like just a few photos on the page or like to show off a bunch of photos.  Maybe you're a clean, simple scrapper or you love to cluster, cluster, cluster.  What are your feelings about white space?  That's the topic of our tutorial today.

Some people call it white space, negative space, empty space or open space.  It's the places on your layout that have no elements.  White space can provide focus or emphasis, provide calmness to an otherwise busy page or give your eye direction or motion.  When I first started digital scrapping, I didn't like a lot of white space on my layouts.  I liked lots of photos on the page to fill up my photo books, so making a layout with lots of white space seemed so inefficient.  Now as my scrapping style has matured somewhat, I appreciate the artistic flair some pages have and enjoy browsing through layouts that creatively use white space.  So let's take a look at several layouts from Cheri's Dream Big Designs gallery and see the many ways we can use white space.  All layouts are linked to the gallery to see full credits.

In these 2 layouts, the white space is very symmetrical around the outer edges of the layout.  The photos, elements and journaling are centered in the middle.  The  background paper is a solid color.  Your eye zooms right to the middle and the page has a very soft feel.

White space can also be asymmetrical when you've got your focal point off center.  These 2 pages have a white background so it's easy for your eye to concentrate all it's attention on your composition.

You can call focus to the upper half of the page...

Or focus on the bottom half of the page....

Or vertically along one side.

Now most times we think of white space as white paper or a solid paper.  But it can also be striped or have a pattern too.

If your page has lots of motion or loud patterns, white space can provide a calm balance.  The solid blue paper tones down the bold patterns in the layout.

Now, let's start really pushing it.  How much white space can you handle on a page?  These 2 pages are very minimal.  What feelings do they bring up for you?

White space may be negative or empty, but it is certainly powerful and bold.  So, strap some white space onto your tool belt and give it a try next time you are creating a layout.  Have a great week!