a very old rule of good design for composition is the eternal union of mass and void. uppity art scholars call these 'positive space' (mass) and 'negative space' (void). one plays off the other. like marriages, some view it as a compromising balance, others as a constant struggle. who cares? it's only art.
this is the exact same concept of wearing a patterned shirt with solid colored pants. even prehistoric folk scrawled dense overlapping scribbles on one selected area of their cave walls, leaving adjacent areas totally blank. the void (negative space) made the mass (positive space) stand out much more, and hence more sacred. cave art rocks!
take the world's most famous painting, Leonardo's Mona Lisa. the mass is Mona's hands and face, the void is the drab brownish landscape and her matching filthy dress. if Michelangelo had painted it, there would have been scores of chunky nekkid people carvorting around her, her smile wouldn't have stood out, hence never would've known fame and Nathalie Cole never would have had a career.
a safe, conservative rule of thumb is 50/50 mass and void. that's the perfect balance, you can't go wrong with that equation. but thankfully, this is not a perfect world, and artistic individuality is encourged, so feel free to waver between these numbers. just remember: more void = more elegance, more mass = more clutter. there are no exceptions.
still not convinced? as one more example, take the whole darn universe. all of it's matter (mass) makes up just a fraction of it, the rest is empty space (void). now, who can claim that our universe is not a beautiful place indeed.
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