On the Merits of Whitespace

First and foremost: No, I did not illustrate this flier for KSO--please direct your accolades to the talented Ms. Marie Otsuka--I was responsible for the layout, composition, and typesetting. Regardless, while design by committee is rightfully maligned as a haphazard enterprise, it's at once not without its potential. A small team of fairly like-minded individuals united in their creative vision and pursuing delineated, complementary tasks can produce something that is both aesthetically pleasing and functional.

Anyhow, I take great issue with the notion that copy/graphics must somehow fill up EVERY bloody nook and cranny in a composition. An poorly-planned, ill-wrought jumble of filler distracts and detracts from the quality of the composition, particularly with a design like this, where a particular direction/sequence of emotional excitement is necessary for the advertisement to work. That said, this aversion to strategic whitespace--and negative space, for that matter--should be extirpated and replaced with a healthy artistic pragmatism, as commercial art demands.