Abstract: Design in Acehnese dance, music, and visual arts is guided by four general concepts of space. The upstream-downstream concept, governed by the centuries-old tendency to travel to the forests upstream and the coastal towns downstream, is associated with Animist-Hindu-Buddhist mysticism and commercial success respectively, resulting in methods of creating arts and crafts that belong either to upstream or downstream areas or both (in the latter case, for example, in the making of the great frame drums). Traces of the cardinal directional concept of space, with a similar Animist-Hindu-Buddhist  background, link the directions to dominant colours used in artists' costumes, performance arena backdrops, embroideries, paintings, and other arts and crafts. The geometric concept governs formations of dancer-musicians and musician-dancers in a performance arena, as well as some traditional visual art designs and some modern paintings.