The last thing you want when making your product label is too much in a tiny space. Great designs are made by excellent use of white space, and plenty of it. White space is simply room for opportunities, and sometimes less is more.
When making a product label, you might think that too much “white space” is a bad thing. However, utilizing this space alongside color and pattern can completely change the way your brand is perceived. In fact, the proper use of white space in design has been proven to increase comprehension by up to 20%, according to Dmitry Fadeyev, creator of Usaura.
Using White Space to Increase Legibility
In research conducted by Wichita State University, it was concluded that increasing white space leads to better reading comprehension. The best thing that white space in label design can do is provide increased legibility. When you create space for the info that you’d like to highlight, it becomes easier to read. White space is the portion of the label left unmarked, the empty space between elements. White space does not need to be white. It can be any color, texture, pattern, or even a background image. White space helps make the words stand out and therefore make your brand stand out to the eye.
Your labels need to be clear and easy to read, so it’s crucial to give any text some breathing room.
Creating Impact and Increasing Attention
“Design is as much an act of spacing as an act of marking.” – Ellen Lupton
White space is a powerful tool to draw a consumer’s attention to a particular design element. Surrounding an element with white space makes it stand out. White space isn’t simply "blank" space — it is a key element of design which enables the objects in it to exist; the balance between positive (or non-white) and the use of negative spaces is key to aesthetic composition.
A label chock full of text or graphics with little to no white space is likely to appear busy, and can be difficult to read. People get confused or frustrated when information overloads them. Keep it simple and let your logo stand out.
Use white space to your advantage in drawing attention to certain design elements. Extra white space around an element moves the consumers’ attention to that area simply due to lack of any distractions surrounding it.
Understanding how to get the most out of white space will take practice. The next time you find yourself, or your designer, thinking about cramming too much content on your label, consider the effect these choices have on your audience’s ability to read, understand, and buy your product!
We hope that this guide has helped you better understand the importance of the use of white space in product label design and how it can be used to make your product stand out. If you have any questions about choosing the product label design or would like to discuss a specific application with a member of our customer success team, please contact us today!