Every artwork has a negative space. It’s an essential part of every design among with positive space and the frame. Your design can not live without negative space as human beings can not live without the air.
The negative space helps us to define the artwork, its space and dimensions. It also creates a “land” for our eyes to rest. But sometimes designers manage to design a piece where negative space is an image itself. In most cases, especially when it’s done well, it revealed other side of the product or idea, spuring people to think twice on a design. This communication with the negative space we called negative space design.
I today’s video I am going to show you a technique on how to create a negative space logo using free vector editor Gravit Designer. Furthermore, I decided to include the most brilliant examples of negative space logos for your inpirations. Enjoy!
Why negative space logos work
Negative space logos utilize main principles of visual perception, called Gestalt Laws. Most of these principles were developed at the beginning of XX century by group of german psychologists. The aim of the Gestalt laws is to explain what cause human’s brain to compose a group of elements in to whole coherent design. Let me list some of the most important rules for negative space artworks:
- The Law of Proximinity
- The Law of Closure
- The Law of Figure-Ground
- The Law of Multi-Stability
To learn more about Gestalt principles in logo design, please, read this excellent Logo Geek’s article.
Negative Space Logo Inspirations
H&E logo, a personal project by Harvey Esparcia
InShop, by Type and Signs
The Veggist, by TYPE AND SIGNS Hamburg
Pencil by Reghardt
Pencil is a self initiated design, exploring how much a concept can be simplified, yet still be effective. This logo has been published in Logo Lounge 6.
Newcastle Food & Wine Festival by Just Creative
Logo design for the Newcastle Food & Wine Festival, Australia.
Lab Open. Playing with negative space, by Abdallah Ahizoune
White dots represent the wrists of the doors. It’s on purpose that I have not added more details
to the doors… I wanted the logo to be as minimalist as possible.
Yoga Australia, by Roy Smith
Handson by Tie a Tie.
Ed’s Electric, by Josiah Jost
RehabFirst, by Josiah Jost
For a rehab clinic in Texas that dedicated to healing through rehab instead of surgery. The mark creates a monogram “r 1” with a medical cross in the negative space. The owners wanted to subtly convey in the logo that they were Christians. Hence, the bottom portion of the cross in the negative space is about 10% longer to suggest a Christian cross.
Iron Duck Clothing, by Josiah Jost
French Property Exhibition, by Ray Smith Design
Mister Cooper Ice Cream, by Johnson Banks
Mister Cooper is an ice-cream start-up specialising in alcoholic and gourmet flavours. The company’s frozen fancies are strictly for grown-ups and they needed a distinctive identity and tone of voice to match their unconventional new brand.
Houston Ballet, by Pentagram
Pentagram has designed a new logo and identity for Houston Ballet. The reworked identity system is the first step in a process of rebranding the company (founded in 1955) as it has evolved over the decades. This marks the most dramatic change in Houston Ballet’s look and feel since 1985.
Houston Ballet, America’s fifth largest ballet company, is an international powerhouse with an ensemble of 57 dancers and an academy housed in a modern, state-of-the-art facility. Houston Ballet has toured extensively throughout the world including appearances in London at Sadler’s Wells in London, at the Bolshoi Theater in Moscow, at Theatre des Champs Elysees in Paris, in six cities in Spain, in Montreal and Ottawa, at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C., and at City Center and the Joyce Theater in New York. In 1995, Houston Ballet was the first full American ballet company invited by the Chinese government to tour the People’s Republic of China.
Ambush 02, by Pentagram
Identity for a high end fashion boutique in Singapore
Salt Lake City Public Library, by Pentagram
Identity, signage program, and website design for the city’s Main Library building
Lions & Lambs Media Group, by Down with Design
We were faced with the challenge of making a seemingly unattainable vision become an inspiring reality.
Mikey did it, by Gert von Duinen
New logo for Mickey Did It, an adventures, design driven and storytelling animation studio based in Amsterdam, the Netherlands.
Movers, by Ramotion
Another version of the logo for a moving company
Finger, by Mateuz Turbinski
Page Pro, by Mateuz Turbinski
The Guild of Food Writers, 300 million
Royal Parks Logos, 300 million
Pelican, by Nikita Lebedev
Fedex, by Landor
People aren’t good at restraint, they don’t get that not adding is really a form of subtracting. All of a sudden there was this rush to tell the world the secret. Sort of defeats the purpose, don’t you think? FedEx’s PR firm immediately wanted to supersize it. They wanted to make it obvious, fill it in with another color. They wanted to feature the arrow in other brand communications. They didn’t get it. It wasn’t about the arrow. An arrow isn’t even interesting to look at. It’s only because of the subtlety that it’s intriguing. And not seeing the arrow doesn’t in any way detract from the power of the mark. The arrow’s just an added, novel bonus. We said no way. I tell people this all the time.
Henny Youngman, the comedian, had this whole signature to his act around ‘Take my wife. Please.’ What the PR folks wanted to do was the equivalent of changing his shtick to ‘Please, take my wife.’ If you have to call attention to your punch line, to explain it, it’s no longer a punch line. It doesn’t work, it isn’t funny, and no one will remember it.
Vanderbult University, by Malcolm Grear Designers
Spartan Golf Club, by Richard Fonteneau
