7 Layout Tips
Carl Shank • January 15, 2021
7 Layout Tips for Your Next Piece
How do I produce a newsletter that is inviting, eye-catching and easy to read? What are the time-honored rules of layout and design that will help me? This is a vast topic, to be sure, but here are seven (7) basic rules to give attention to for you to "look good" in print and digital media.
- Know where you are going. Have a good understanding of the goals and purpose of your piece. What do you want to accomplish through this piece? Here, "form" follows "function." Roger Parker in his Looking Good In Print notes: "There should be a logical reason for the way you employ every graphic tool. That tool should relate to the idea it expresses as well as the environment in which the final product will appear." (p. 4)
- Place the right fonts and graphics well. There are time-honored rules for mixing and using different fonts, or typefaces, in a piece. Most print pieces use a serif (with "feet") font for the main text and a sans-serif (without "feet") font for headlines. This rule has been used successfully for ages, but digital use has relaxed the rules somewhat. The issue here is readability. What should stand out, stands out, and what should be read for information is clear. Clarity, organization and simplicity should rule.
- Guide the reader through your piece. "The design of that map [a reading roadmap] should follow the readers' natural tendency to read an advertisement or publication from upper left to lower right." (p. 6)
- Use plenty of what is called "white space." Don't try to crowd into a piece all that can or even should be said. Separate headings from text, points from one another, and use sufficient white space to separate graphics from textual elements. If it looks "crowded" it probably is crowded.
- Don't try to "show off" in your piece. This is not "art for art's sake" or to show your ability to mix colors and fonts and graphics or to display your talents. This is to get the point across in the most direct and pleasing way possible.
- Pay attention to spelling and grammar. Probably the most overlooked and underrated truth about many newsletters is that they ignore proper spelling and the right use of grammatical constructs. Buy a "style manual" and consult it for proper sentence, paragraph and topical styles, especially if you footnote something. By the way — be especially careful of plagiarizing. This is unfortunately a major "sin" in church and ministry communications. Give credit to where credit is due.
- Use spell checkers and layout helps. Microsoft and Adobe and many other publishers have publishing helps and advice which you should give attention to and use and adapt for your needs.
Hopefully, these introductory points will help your publications shine!
Successful Layout & Design
Charles Ayers Faust (b. 1860) was an American calligrapher and typographic designer known primarily for his 1912 compendium Faust’s 75 New Alphabets , a richly illustrated manual of lettering techniques. Published in Chicago by the C. W. Braithewait Company, this 72‑page volume is now in the public domain. CARE Typography, in its mission to digitally restore older typography, has restored some of Faust's designs for the modern type world. 75 unique alphabets for artistic lettering, including brush, air-brush, air-pencil, relief, stencil, marking, shading, and both ornate (Payzant, Soennecken) and practical “common pen” styles. They are Highly visual, serving as both an instructional guide and inspirational specimen book for sign-writers, designers, artists, and printers of the early 20th century. Samples are below, available from CARE Typography .
The De Stijl (Dutch for “The Style”) typographical and art movement emerged around 1917 and significantly influenced modern art, design and thought itself. In the wake of the chaos of World War I, the movement sought to express a new vision of harmony and order. De Stijl was not just an art style, but a comprehensive aesthetic philosophy. It sought universal beauty, as abstracted from individual beauty, and a visual language and typography based on simplicity, geometry and primary colors, namely red, blue and yellow. Its core characteristics were the use of straight horizonal and vertical lines, the use of rectangles and squares, an emphasis on asymmetry, and the favoring of pure abstraction. De Stijl was deeply influenced by the philosophy of Neo-Plasticism, a theory developed by Piet Mondrian, which sought to depict reality in a pure, universal form. Behind this philosophy was the religious thrust of Theosophy, particularly the spiritual writings of Helena Blavatsky (1831–1891) and Rudolf Steiner (1861–1925).
