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Some notes about color and design - F. Danziger
Even the most basic aspect of design, such as putting one rectangle inside of another has a profound affect on what the design "says."
One of the best design systems, I have found, was taught to me by Hobson Pittman at the Academy, when I was a student in the late 1960s. It involves positive space (the "thing") and negative space (the "air" around the "thing".)
Mr. Pittman would look for "like spaces" in your work, and, except when symmetry was called for, he stressed "no positive/negative space equality." The box within a box image at left, fails this test, the one at right passes.
As seen below, spaces "a" and "b" are about equal in the left image.
The right image has no space equalities.
This does not mean one is "better" than the other- just that the right image has more variety of space and gives the eye a more complex experience. Many times in my own work, I have studied an evolving painting with a sense of dissatisfaction. When I analyzed it for + and - space equality, and eliminated the redundant spaces- the image became more satisfying.
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Next-Figure/Ground Relationships
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