Little social tricks pay off tenfold
 
If it weren’t for reruns and venues like Netflix, the title of this post might go lost on many of our readers. But we’re talking about Gilligan’s Island, the sixties-era sitcom wherein seven stranded castaways had to make do with the perils of life on a desolate desert isle… and only one change of clothing.
 
In every episode, for three seasons, Gilligan wore the exact same thing. A red shirt with a white collar, faded bell bottoms, and a little white Dixie cup hat. Must’ve been, well, fragrant.
 
You see where this is going, don’t you? You instantly grasp the nexus between Gilligan’s sartorial monotony and your own business development, right?
 
Okay, it’s a stretch, but here goes.
 
How many times have you gotten ready for an in-person meeting, and picked out what you felt was the most appropriate outfit to wear, only to wonder, “Oh geez, was this the exact same thing I wore the last time?”
 
Keeping tabs
 
That’s where we got the Gilligan reference. You really don’t want to show up wearing the exact same thing you wore last time. You could argue that Steve Jobs, presumably taking a cue from the legend about Albert Einstein, always wore the same thing on stage, but we’d rather not worry that people think: “Sheesh… Is that their only outfit?”
 
The easiest way to avoid this little dilemma is to jot it down. Don’t put it in your calendar for the day of the meeting. That would make it too much work to look up for your next meeting. Rather, put down a time-stamped note in the notes for that client’s contact, so you can quickly see, “Oh, last time I wore that blue blazer, etc., etc.”
 
This, clearly, is a little trick for making a better appearance for yourself. But there are also others you can use to help you engage with others.
 
Write it down
 
Again, take advantage of whatever contact software you’re using; indeed, these tricks even apply to a Rolodex, if you know what one is (or are still using one). This is where you jot down the name of the assistant, the names of the spouse and kids, the birthdates, etc. Be sure to time-stamp them, for example: “April 14th, 2017: Jill had a baby boy, Jayden.” Then, all you’ll ever need is a quick glance at that contact card when you’re about to jump on the phone or meet, and you won’t waste time racking your brains for those little details or (worse) getting an important fact like that wrong.
 
This also works “inbound.” When you receive a call from Contact A, simply bring up Contact A’s card on screen while you’re chatting. You’ll appear brilliant.
 
These, clearly, are neither new nor high-tech tricks. But you’d be surprised how many people fail to employ them, despite all the advances in customer-relationship-management or CRM software, cloud-linked contacts, etc.
 
Plan in advance
 
Not long ago, we were booked to have lunch with a client out of town. They suggested the restaurant. We had a lot to discuss at the meeting and wanted to stay focused. Know what we did in advance? We Googled the restaurant, perused their menu online, and picked out exactly what we would order. When we got there in person, we politely skimmed the menu (also to make sure the online version was accurate!) and casually ordered what we’d chosen beforehand. It bought us just a little extra time and relaxation and allowed us to focus more on the real details of the meeting. And no one suspected.
 
Do you have a little trick you’d care to share? Post it in the comments or contact us and let us know. We can’t get enough of little time- and effort-savers like these. 

Lauding the positives of negative space
 
Graphic designers, more often than not, will wax rhapsodic about “white space.”
 
But what is it?
 
Can you use it?
 
Will it help?
 
In this article, we’ll examine what white space is, how it can work for you, and when to intentionally reject it.
 
A loose definition
 
In the graphic world, “white space” refers to area in a layout which is unpopulated by type or images. (We’ll talk about its analogs in other media momentarily.) You might be inclined to call it “dead space,” but a more appropriate moniker would be “breathing room.”
 
The thing about white space isn’t what it contains (i.e., nothing), but rather what it sets off or emphasizes. Think of an Apple TV spot. It always ends with a blank black screen, with a stark white Apple logo in the middle. Is the logo huge? Since there’s nothing else competing with it, there’s an entire screen it could occupy. But you know that that’s not the case. The logo is relatively small, taking up maybe ten percent of the screen’s real estate.
 
This is by design. Apple wants the logo to be smallish, with lots of room (“white space,” even though, in this instance, it’s black) around it, because doing so makes it look classier. If the logo were big/taking up the whole screen, it would be yelling at you; designers would say it were “horsey” (meaning annoyingly oversized).
 
An analogy
 
Here’s a way to think about white space, and why it works. Sure, in the Apple example above, the white space is like “reserved space,” holding back anything that might compete with the logo. But think of a house. Picture a pretty, two-story Victorian. Picture that house on a crowded city street, with houses on either side, pressed up against the sidewalk.
 
Now picture the house again. But this time, imagine it in the country, set back from the road a good 200 feet behind a broad green lawn. Suddenly, it’s transformed from “urban clutter” to “elegant estate.” The only difference was the setting—the off-setting—the white space.
 
Applications
 
If you think of graphical treatments of upscale logos (e.g., BMW, Lexus), they’ll always be surrounded by white space, often lots of it. Indeed, it’s become part of the tacit vocabulary not only of design, but of comprehension: When you see anything with lots of white space around it, you assume it’s elegant/expensive/ exclusive.
 
So you can make this work for you. When you add white space, you create that elegant boundary. It’s a nice touch, provided that what you want to showcase is indeed elegant. Otherwise, it’s, well, like putting lipstick on a pig.
 
Other media
 
As we’d intimated above, “white space” isn’t just for graphics. It can find its analogs in audio, video, and even writing.
 
Like this.
 
That little fragment, above, commands its own white space. It’s set off prettily; it forces you to take a separate breath, unconsciously, to read it. It can create a nice little flourish, when properly employed.
 
Ditto for audio. Here, “white space” is silence. We’re so inured these days—in movies, TV, radio, video games, podcasts—to hearing totally over-produced, ear-jamming sound, that it loses its power from its constant volume. Silence is a breather. It can create elegance. It can also provide dramatic underpinning, such as suspense or a quiet interlude that you’d like to interrupt with a new and shocking sound.
 
Since video is more fluid, “white space” can take on more meanings. It can be a static shot (imagine a vast landscape) that’s held on screen for a long time without the frenetic cutting that’s so expected these days. It could be literal white space; think of the final scenes in 2001: A Space Odyssey.
 
The important thing for you to recognize is that white space is a tool in your kit, regardless of medium. And—bonus—it’s free. You don’t need a big budget to add white space to something you’re creating, but doing so may well impart a richer feel to the finished product.
 
When to reject it
 
As we’d noted above, white space traditionally connotes elegance, serenity, and order. And there are perfectly valid times to employ anything but. Here, you can use the opposite rules to your advantage. If you want something that’s frenetic and barely contained and bursting with nervous energy that feels like it’s about to explode at any minute no matter what you do, avoid white space. Fill in every gap—and in case you didn’t notice it, we employed that exact technique, verbally, in the previous sentence. We purposely opted for the run-on that unconsciously runs you out of breath as you read it.
 
Do you have any favorite examples of white space in action, ingeniously employed? Share them with us. We’d love to see them.