Trapping White Space ................................................................................
Sometimes white space can look bad. If you’ve surrounded a white area with
text or graphics, you’ve managed to create what is called trapped white
space. This kind of trapped space looks bad and can make your page look
blotchy and jumbled as shown in Figure 8-9:
The problem in Figure 8-9 is the distance between the H3 (the thin horizontal
black line) on the right side and the text it describes. Headlines, captions,
and other descriptive items should almost always be right next to the photo
or paragraph they describe. Figure 8-10 shows how adjusting the items on the
page can remove the trapped white space and put the headlines next to the
text they describe.
Figure 8-10:
When you
remove the
trapped
white
space, you
improve the
design
(compare
this to
Figure 8-9).
Figure 8-9:
Although
this design
is varied
and
balanced, it
contains
trapped
white
space.
Chapter 8: Web Design Basics 163
