Making Sense Of Vacant Space

All vacant space can be expressed in different meaningful ways through the arrangement of objects (shapes, forms or figures, etc.) within it. This is an influential concept adopted in traditional Chinese art design and aesthetic judgement, and is an important aesthetic principle used in visual communications and design.Artistic design creates an image with sense, whereas aesthetic judgement derives sense from the image. As a concrete expression of the intrinsic spirit of traditional Chinese art design and aesthetic judgement, vacant space has been applied to emphasize this dialectical interrelations between the tangible image (expression, configuration, etc.) and intangible sense (impression, connotation, etc.), as exemplified extensively in traditional Chinese painting, calligraphy, poetry, drama, and garden architecture. With its rich connotation and implicit expression, vacant space often makes art design and aesthetic judgement full of mysteries and miracles.In visual communications and design, vacant space often refers to the un-inked, un-occupied, un-filled, or negative areas in a picture plane. However, vacant space is not a void to be filled or 'broken up', but an indispensable structural element with strikingly aesthetic quality. Vacant space may take a variety of shapes and forms, and hence offers unlimited opportunities and aesthetic values for visual creation. With its innovative applications, vacant space can enable the creation of artistic conception, enhance the liberty of imagination, promote the soothing effect to the eye, and epitomize the dictum of'less is more'.Vacant space has been applied typically in the design of (1) positive-negative compositions, where occupied or positive area is in contrast with the vacant or negative area, and both areas work as hard in creating a unified result; (2) incomplete compositions, where only part of an image is given, and the viewer is pulled into the creative experience of completing the image mentally, by the mutual tension between the given and the missing; and (3) inconspicuous or ambiguous compositions, where vacant space may suggest ambiguities about what is figure and what is ground, and create visual illusions of objects that are not really there at all.By providing contrast and working together cohesively with objects in creatively designed compositions, vacant space often generates an optical illusion or a visual mirage that invokes an effect of "what you feel is beyond what you see," creates an intricate visual communication gestalt, and thus perpetuates the aesthetic values of the vacant space and the associated composition. The visual sensation of vacant space and the effect of synergy between occupied and un-occupied areas give both designer and viewer the freedom of imagination and fascinating aesthetic experiences. These inventive applications of the vacant space, intentionally or unintentionally reflect the traditional Chinese aesthetic ideas of "existence and non-existence complementing each other", "existence coming from non-existence" and "knowing white from black," where "existence" and "black" may be regarded as the inked, occupied, filled or positive areas and "non-existence" and "white" as vacant space.In this paper, the distinctive artistic appeals and typical applications of vacant space in visual communications and design are examined and discussed from the perspective of traditional Chinese aesthetics. It is argued that (1) by intertwining and interacting with occupied areas, vacant space becomes a critical graphic element in the process of visual communications and design, which enriches, enhances and perpetuates a visual composition's artistic connotation and appeal, and elevates the art work to the pure realm of aesthetics; (2) proper administration of vacant space in the picture plane, though easier said than done, provides an indispensable and creative method of visual communications and design for innovative visual expressions and graphic compositions, to realize effective communication of information, insig...