Michael Bierut's Reflections on Figure/Ground

"I remember a lesson from my first year of design school, a series of exercises that we did to learn about the figure / ground relationship, the relationship between the thing that’s the subject of a visual composition and the area that surrounds it. For me, this is one of the most magical things about graphic design. It’s the idea that the spaces between the letterforms are as important as the letters themselves, that the empty space in a layout isn’t really empty at all but as filled with tension, potential and excitement. I learned you ignore the white space at your peril." - Michael Bierut