What is "whitespace", and how does it relate to Book Cover Design?

Happy March! It is warming up outside, and seems to be the perfect day to talk about what "whitespace" is. Kellie Southerland, our Conceptual Book Design Associate recently did a presentation on this topic in one of our Design meetings.

Whitespace, or commonly referred to as "negative space", is the open area in a design that helps guide your eye to the focal point. Whitespace is a visual weight, just like objects and text, and by using the whitespace effectively, it creates balance in the design. Just to clarify, it is not necessarily "white" in color.

Tate Publishing designers use this quite a bit in our design work, and I like to say that effective use of whitespace is the trademark of an experienced and gifted designer.

The book "In Lumine Tuo", by author Robert W. Bitler, designer Amber Gulilat has captured the essence of how whitespace can benefit a cover design. In both the initial and final design, your mind wants to "complete" the story of the hand reaching out to touch the light. This cover would not have held this same impact, if the hand had actually already been touching the light. Where would the drama in that be?

Initial design:














Final design:


















All this to say, Resist the urge to keep adding "things" to your book cover, just for the sake of wanting to fill space... more often then not, your book cover will lose its impact if there is not an adequate use of white space. In this day and age, we get enough competing visual stimuli, and your book's cover is not the place to add more.