13De-fluff Your Slides and Embrace White Space
“Simplicity is the ultimate form of sophistication.”
—Leonardo da Vinci
Facilitating visual understanding is less about what is there and more about what is not there. What do I mean by this cryptic fortune cookie aphorism? Take a look at an ad for the Apple iPhone X in Figure 13.1.
FIGURE 13.1 Apple iPhone X advertisement
Source: Haymarket Media Group Ltd.
What do you notice about it? Not much there, right? Do you feel like your brain is sighing a big “ahhhhh” of relief right now? So calming, so serene, yes?
Now compare that with this hilarious tongue-in-cheek parody of a “Microsoft I-pod Pro 2005 XP Human Ear Professional Edition” product box1 in Figure 13.2.
FIGURE 13.2 Parody iPod advertisement mimicking Microsoft design2
Source: [13], Microsoft Corporation / www.nuvonium.com/blog/view/parody-of-microsoft-redesigning-ipod-packaging-still-makes-me-chuckle last accessed 5 May,2023
Do you see the, erm, “slight” difference between these design approaches? What's in the Microsoft parody ad that's missing from the real Apple ad? If you said loads of unnecessary visual junk, you're right.
That's because Apple knows what's up when it comes to feeding a viewer's brain something it craves: white space (and Microsoft is catching ...
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