How Brands Turn “Nothing” Into Luxury

Added: 2026-05-22

[00:00:00]This one design technique can make an everyday item feel like it belongs in a museum and it's used by brands to turn literally nothing [music] into premium positioning. You've experienced it when you walk into a luxury store [music] and without even seeing the price, you know it's going to be expensive. So, how do you make something feel special, valuable, high-end? Beginner designers often misunderstand this. They think luxury means just adding more detail, more decoration, more expensive-looking materials to prove the value. And this seems logical, but often it just ends up looking cheap and tacky like the excessive sponsor logos and shiny gold lettering on these cricket jerseys or letting someone loose with gold leaf and golden trinkets like this guy did in his office. And that doesn't mean that ornate can't be luxury. Of course, it can, but it's usually because it's backed by authentic craft and presented within a space that conveys its importance. Space is wealth. It's extravagant to have ornamental gardens, land that could have been used for farming or industry. Everyone understands the value of space. So, when a small artwork is housed with all the space around it in the largest room in the museum, it tells us something more than they need space for crowds. The absence of anything else on this wall makes the thing left behind feel more important and gives us space to appreciate it. When a small portion of food is presented on a large plate, we understand that it's more valuable than a plate that's filled to the brim. This is the magic of white space.

[00:01:32]>> [music] >> In this video, I'll show you how this works, why it can make something feel premium, and how to use it properly in web and graphic design because if you get it wrong, it doesn't look luxurious, it just looks empty.

[00:01:45]To understand how to present products on screen, think about how they're presented in the physical world. Narrow aisles and shelves packed to the ceiling tell us that this store is competing on price. They're selling at a volume that allows for low prices and low margins, but when we have space to consider and goods are presented as artworks, we know it's going to be expensive. Objects presented with regard to the space around them are perceived as more valuable than those stacked against each other. And this has persisted on the web. Retailers with big inventories tend to cram lots of items into every frame.

[00:02:19]Their customers are looking for the lowest price. Those with fewer products separate them, allowing a feeling of spaciousness for customers who are less price sensitive. Okay, so more space equals more expensive. Well, no, that's too simplistic. You need to know how to use white space intelligently in combination with all the elements in the design. White space isn't just about luxury though. It's a key aspect of graphic communication design. It brings order, beauty, and clarity to layouts, guiding the user. And to do this expertly on the web, you first need to understand how it works in imagery and graphic design. Photographers call it negative and use it to draw attention to the subject. When you use a photograph in your composition, the negative space can be a useful place for your text and graphic elements, but be careful to ensure the new composition remains balanced. Graphic designers call it white space because paper's often white and [music] it can of course though be any color. There's a reason why MoMA New York added these two posters from 1960 to their collection and you don't need to be able to read Japanese to know this is a great layout. By isolating the subject and making the background one plain color as opposed to the original photorealistic environment, the artist has established a definitive figure-ground relationship. Our eyes drawn by the white space around it to the area where the foot's standing on the gun, the imagery that encapsulates the concept of the poster.

[00:03:41]>> [music] >> And the type being overlaid on the figure keeps it away from the bottom right, further emphasizing this.

[00:03:47]The white space does the heavy lifting again here by by attention to the concept. The title is meant to evoke horizontally moving a film title sequence, and the overall effect is serious, restrained. It's an important cultural event. And the moving film effect actually works even better in the semi-transparent printing on the exhibition catalog cover.

[00:04:09]It's not just the elements which are very simple, but it's the space around them here that makes a composition.

[00:04:15]Design is problem-solving, and these do it so well that we're still talking about them so many years later. Compare this to the event posters made by ChatGPT that I keep seeing around my local community.

[00:04:27]So, white space is more than a luxury good, but it certainly is one, as Sally Mae appoints out in this diagram. The higher the income of the readers, the more white space they enjoy in their magazines. Compare a glossy gossip magazine with an expensive art publication, and you'll see it in action.

[00:04:44]This is another motif that's persisted on the web, despite the cost of paper not being an issue. Compare a cheap jewelry store to this Chanel collection.

[00:04:53]You could say that both are doing their job because the first site is demonstrating they have a wide range at low prices, but one is cluttered, the other is considered. Notice how the Chanel page demonstrates the benefits of white space.

[00:05:06]Firstly, yes, the overall aesthetic is refined and elegant, but the use of white space here also reduces distraction, helping the user focus on what matters. Hierarchy is more readily established. The page is easy to read, and it is split up into these chunks you can scan through. Each frame encourages us to pause and take it in. The relationship between forms in the layout are emphasized. They don't require arrows, rules, or or graphic elements.

[00:05:33]These advantages are not just for luxury brands, but improve the user experience in many environments. Stop treating >> [music] >> empty canvas as wasted real estate, and instead use it as a strategic tool to guide the eye. It's that little bit of magic that turns nothing into something.

[00:05:50]Let me know in the comments if you'd like to hear more insights on design.

[00:05:53]And if you're ready to progress in your design career, then subscribe to the channel and follow the links in the description to discover how we can help you. Until next time, happy designing.