The Colour White
“For those colours which you wish to be beautiful, always first prepare a pure white ground” – Leonardo Da Vinci.
White paint is white because it reflects most light rays away from it. White paint can be made of many things. From chalk or zinc, barium or rice, or from little fossilised sea creatures in limestone graves. The Dutch artist Jan Vermeer even made some his luminescent whites with a recipe that included alabaster and quartz. The greatest of the whites, and certainly the cruellest, is made of lead. European artists for hundres of years have rated lead white as one of the most important paints on their palette. This brief summary taken from Colour travels through the Paintbox. The whole chapter on white is fascinating and deadly.
In Design, White represents the KIS principal ( keep it simple). As in painting I use the white as my starting canvas. I don’t consider white an empty space but an intregal part of the design which highlights the colourful images or lines on the page. To me, white is a very important part of visual communication and keeps the design clean, crisp and pleasing.
Without the right amount of white spacing, text would be hard to read, graphics would lose their impact, and there would be no balance between all the elements on a page or site.
