A Business Innovation and Sustainability Blog

per∙spec∙tive noun \pәr-‘spek-tiv\

: the capacity to view things in their true relations or relative importance

Imagine you’re in a framing shop selecting a frame for a picture. Notice that a blue frame brings out the blues in the photograph, the red frame brings out the reds, while the black frame brings out the black. The picture looks different in every frame, but the photograph is always the same.

Artists work with three elements (Cass, 2009):

1. The Frame. This is the bounding size of the artwork;
2. The Positive Space. This is the subject; and,
3. The Negative Space. This is the empty space around the subject.

The trick in composing art is to resist what’s in your memory. The typical temptation is to create a composition based on existing knowledge and memories; creating an object as it’s remembered and not how it actually appears. It’s a false interpretation of the image that’s created because the focus is on positive space; the subject only. In reality, what defines the subject is what it’s not; the negative space.

For example, what defines a chair in a picture is the distance it is from the wall, the interaction it has with light, and the shape and size of the shadow cast upon the floor. How the chair is framed and the environment included will elicit an emotional response to the chair. Would you like to sit in it? What defines the boundaries of the chair is everything that’s not the chair; the negative space.   

In fact, when artists are creating something familiar a work around to overcome their proclivity to compose what’s in mind (instead of how it appears!) is to mirror the subject or turn it up-side down; somehow, distorting the subject to make it unfamiliar.

What am I trying to say?

Consider how you frame problems and how it predisposes you to think a certain way. If your dealing with the familiar, be skeptical of your view. Consider widening your focus (i.e. re-frame the problem) to include an interpretation of all the relationships and interactions the subject is having with the surrounding environment. And most importantly, observe the negative space.

This is not something you’re prone to do. It’s hard! It’s hard in graphic design and it’s hard in business. When you do master the ability to work with these three elements, you’ll have the capacity to view things in their true relations or relative importance. In business, think like an artist - You’ll begin to see things as they appear.

Miles Davis said, “Don’t play what’s there, play what’s not there…” I’m still considering what he might have meant by that, but I think he’s message may be the same.

Reference: Cass, Jacob. 2009. “Negative Space”. Layers Magazine. Retrieved from http://layersmagazine.com/negative-space.html