Newsletter Layout Basics

Carl Shank • October 14, 2021

What makes up a good newsletter? There are both CONTENT and LAYOUT issues to consider.


CONTENT. Make the newsletter concise, readable, active by using strong verbs, scannable, up-to-date, people oriented, and economical. Make it regular, weekly if possible. "Scannable" means easy to read and see main pieces of information. Tie broader interests into the lives of local people. This is especially important if you reference, in a church newsletter, for instance, denominational or national news and views. Include short snippets by others in your group of readers. Advertise links to well-researched and important information for your readers. Include an occasional literary piece or arts piece to cultivate creative interchange and add vitality and dimension to your newsletter. Every so often use special interest pieces. Make sure the source of the newsletter is clear and readable, including name, address, date, staff. Do not plagiarize — give credit to where credit is due.


LAYOUT.  Have a distinctive and well-designed logo. Hire a graphic artist if needed for a professional logo look. Make sure the newsletter has "visual vitality" — good paper stock, quality reproduction, eye-catching headlines, plenty of white space and graphic elements to break up long text. Other type considerations would be —


(1) Choose the right typeface. Don't be limited to Times Roman, Helvetica and ghastly Courier. Try Palatino, Century, Lucida and Stone Informal. Book faces would include Garamond, Caslon 540, Galliard and Baskerville. (See Example 1 below) Choose a face legible in small sizes. Whatever you choose, be careful of fanciful, grotesque, weird and strange faces for most of the newsletter. "Extreme features—thick strokes, very thin strokes, tall and narrow forms, short and squatty forms, slanted characters, fancy serifs, swashes—anything that calls attention to itself lowers the readability of the face, because you notice the letterforms, rather than the message." (Robin Williams, "Improving Readability," Technique, August 1995). What you want is readability, cleanness, and communication.


(2) Size type to fit. This means appropriate size of type and line spacing. Strive for lines between 50 and 70 characters. Another way to say this would be from 8 to 11 words or wide enough to accommodate 2 1/2 lowercase alphabets of the typeface chosen. People read groups of words at a time, so be careful of too few or too many words on a line. Do not double-space between the end of sentences (an old practice on typewriters—remember those?!) For a piece too long, hyphenate lines setting them ragged right, or cut some text. For a piece too short, remove hyphenations, break long paragraphs into shorter ones, or narrow the column widths. The general rule for leading is 20 percent of type size, so 2 points of leading for 10-point type, making a total of 12 points from one baseline to the next. However, some faces require more leading for readability. Since we read in phrases, avoid uneven letter and word spacing, or too close or too far apart spacing. Kerning and tracking controls on page layout programs like PageMaker often need tweaked. (See Example 2 below) Whatever looks right is important here.


(3) Use display type for headlines. Do not use all capital letters. A mix of upper and lower case letters gives more readability and pleasure in headline reading. Generally, avoid ALL CAPS even for headlines. Leave conjunctions such as and, in, and the, lowercase. There are many display faces available, but I would say choose a display face that goes with the text used in the piece. Sans serif faces (without "feet") are often good display faces, but again be careful of gaudiness. And use your computer program's kerning function (space between letters) to create visual acceptability —


WORKING TOOLS or Working Tools (Formata Bold font),

but not WORKING TOOLS (unless it is a Halloween piece!)


Also, end lines at logical stopping points —

Today it will be sunny with periods

of rain and spotty showers Not this — but rather this —


Today it will be sunny

with periods of rain

and spotty showers


Trademark or copyright symbols should be a smaller type size than the font and move the symbol so that its top aligns with the top of the text. (Example 3 below)


(4)  Replace typewriter-type quotations and other marks with the font's built in marks. (Example 4 below) Jim Heid from Macworld also rightly advises "avoid gimmicky font styles such as shadow and outline. Also think twice about using the small-caps option that many programs provide. . . . avoid superimposing type over a gray-shaded background." (Macworld, June 1989) (Example 5 below)


Successful Layout & Design

Theology of Type (1): Printers Marks Expanded

By Carl Shank • October 25, 2025
Theology of Type . What does typography have to do with theology? Actually, quite a lot. It is significant that early typography had strong religious roots, especially Christian European roots. Many of these typographers and printers believed and lived from a worldview filled with the Divine. The history of typography operates out of a viewpoint of creativity that goes back to an overriding faith in God. Early Printers' Marks reveal a strong Christian theological stance. Printers’ Marks are symbols or logos that have been used as trademarks by early printers, starting in the fifteenth century. Before the introduction of copyrights, printers’ marks legitimized a printer’s work. Copyright legislation would not be introduced until the eighteenth century. Such marks usually appeared on the last page of a printed work. The first known mark can be found on the Mainz Psalter, produced by Johann Fust and Peter Schoeffer in 1457. This mark depicted two shields bearing a saltire, a diagonal cross and a chevron surrounded by three stars. At the outset these were marks of the printer, but the practice was gradually adopted by publishers. In early works a statement at the end listed the date of completion and the location. Sometimes the name of the printer or scribe or their initials were included. In printing and typography this is called a colophon, derived from the Greek word κολοφών, meaning summit, or finishing touch. The printer’s mark was added and gradually moved to the title page of the book. The earliest marks were simple designs produced by using a woodcut stamp. Maggie Patton in her excellent introduction to printers’ marks notes that “the design of a printer’s mark used visual puns, wordplay or sometimes a rebus, a puzzle combining illustrations and letters to depict a motto or printer’s initials. Sacred symbols, the cross and the orb, real and mythical animals, heraldic symbols, and scientific instruments were used in thousands of combinations. The sixteenth century was the highpoint for printers’ marks, when lavish illustrations incorporating a printer’s mark decorated title pages. Many famous images and symbols originate from printers’ marks. The design used by Venetian printer Aldus Manutius depicts a dolphin wrapped around an anchor. The printer’s mark used by French printer Robert Estienne shows a man standing by an olive tree, symbolising the tree of knowledge. Christophe Plantin, in Antwerp, used a pair of compasses held by a hand extending from a bank of clouds, the compass points signifying labour and constancy.” [1]

Calligraphy & Typography

By Carl Shank • September 29, 2025
Calligraphy & Typography. Calligraphy, the art of beautiful handwriting, has a long and rich history that spans cultures, religions, and centuries. It developed not only as a means of communication but also as a form of artistic expression, religious devotion, and cultural preservation. While typography is not calligraphy, with much of type carefully structured, straight-backed and neatly drawn and focused on lettering for printing readability, both art forms involve visual expression of language. Both focus on the shape, proportion and beauty of letters. Both reflect religious, historical and cultural influences on writing styles. Both are used for artistic and decorative purposes in design, and much of type has been greatly influenced by calligraphic styles. Yet, they differ significantly in their methods, purposes and tools. Calligraphy is the art of hand drawn, beautiful writing, while typography focuses on the design and arrangement of type letters for print or digital use. Calligraphy is created manually with pens, brushes, or quills, while type is created digitally or mechanically using typefaces. Traditional tools used in calligraphy include dip pens, brushes and ink, while type is formed with digital or physical lettering. Calligraphy is highly expressive and free flowing, while type is usually uniform and consistent across all characters. Calligraphy is usually done for decorative and personal use, while typography is often constructed and used for mass communication in books, websites and signage. Mediums for calligraphy include paper, parchment, walls, while typography focuses on print and digital media. Yet, the roots of much of type comes from the wealth of history and styling offered by calligraphy. CARE Typography has been able with Font Lab's tools like Fontographer, to translate fine calligraphy into usable typefaces, even for the modern market tastes. The fine art of calligraphy is highlighted in the background to this post in the 2018 calligraphic rendering of the Scripture, "Well done, good and faithful servant" (Matthew 25:25a) by Calligraphy for Christ ( https://www.calligraphyforchrist.com/ ). Such beautiful religious typographic pieces actually begin not with the Gutenberg era in 1450 but with the ancient Chinese.
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