Good
design starts with knowing about how the people view your pages
and take in the information they see. Your goal is to offer them a
product visually pleasing enough to entice them to stick around and
explore.
To help
you do that, here
are a few design principles:
*
Each
page should have single, clear point of entry --
a main, dominant element that draws a viewer's eye to it.
The
point of entry may be a headline, but more often, it is a good
photo, run large. Readers will look at that photo (or
headline) first, then move around the page from there.
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* Balance refers
to the placement of items with comparable visual weight in
appropriate places on a page.
For
example, "heavy" elements, such as large photos,
typically go at the top of a page but should be balanced with
another photo near the bottom.
Balance
isn't about perfect symmetry, but it is about creating cohesive
pages that have counter-weights at various places.
Good
balance creates harmony among the elements
on the page. It also helps readers' eyes move around the page,
creating a kind of flow that, ideally, encourages them to take
in the page as a whole before selecting particular items to
explore further. |
* Contrast also is important.
It
means just what you think: Your page should have items that are
visually different
from one another -- different sizes, different shapes, different
use of various kinds of headlines and so on.
Along
with balance, contrast helps generate movement. The variation
among elements
creates visual interest, inviting readers to
move their eyes around and explore the pieces that make up
a page.
Contrast
also involves the use of white space,
or space without any text or graphic in it.
White
space creates "air" on
a page -- breathing room for the eye. White space is vital
to a well-designed
page; without it, you'll have visual clutter and overload. |
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* A
well-designed page also has proportion: Its pieces
form pleasing shapes.
For
designers, proportion translates to modular layout,
or a design that relies on rectangles.
* Each
story package -- the text,
headline and photos, if any, along with pull-quotes or other
graphic devices -- is in the shape of a vertical or a horizontal
rectangle.
(Less
commonly, it may form a square. What goes for photos also goes
for design: Squares are less visually interesting than other
shapes.) |
* The
opposite of modular layout is one that uses "dog
legs," or
columns of text that are uneven.
You
know what dogs do when they raise their legs. Likewise,
dog legs
in design are to be avoided. |
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* Simplicity also is important to design.
Less
is more. Avoid clutter. |
* Finally,
remember that form follows function.
Great
design enhances strong communication. But it won't save weak
communication. |
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We'll
talk more about page design again. First, let's look more closely at
how to go about designing or "laying out" an individual
story.
As a beginning
newspaper designer, you'll typically start working on inside pages.
Because these pages
contain ads, you'll often have room for only one or two stories. Here
are some guidelines for handling them:
* Keeping
thinking in terms of rectangles.
Every
story package -- that is, all the pieces of the story considered
together, such as the headline, text and photo -- should form
either a vertical or a horizontal rectangle (or, sometimes,
a square) on the page.
* Either
shape is fine though horizontal stories give you more flexibility,
especially for stories with
artwork.
Horizontal
text also tends
to be less intimidating
to readers than long columns of vertical text. |
* Sometimes,
ads get in the way on inside pages, and you have to wrap
the text around an ad. But look for ways to avoid doing
this if possible.
Story
packages on section
fronts and front page should always consist of rectangles in
various shapes and sizes. |
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* Text
should flow from column to column without interruption.
You
don't want to force your reader to have to visually leap over
anything
(such as a photo or a pull-quote) to keep reading. |
* Headlines
should touch the start of the text. (If you use a deck,
it will be the deck that touches the start of the text.)
The
main hed
also should cover all the legs of text in a story, even
legs that are beneath a photo. (Otherwise, you have a "raw
wrap." Most, though not all, designers frown on such things.)
Decks
need not cover all the legs of a text in a story. |
* Photos can
run in various places in relation to the text and the headline(s).
(See the pages from the Newspaper Designer's Handbook for examples.)
Again,
story packages that form horizontal rectangles generally give
you more options. |
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A
couple of rough rules of thumb may also be helpful in deciding how you
want your page to look:
* Columns
of text (called "legs")
should be no less than 2 inches long and no
more than 10 inches long (12 at the very outside).
This
means that as a designer, you often have a variety of options
for displaying your text.
For
instance, say you have a story that's 12 inches long.
How many different ways might you run that text, assuming
you want to retain a modular layout?
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*
The "dollar
bill rule" suggests
that if you can place a dollar bill over any part of the page
and have it touch nothing but body text, that block of text
is too large. Look for ways to break it up: a pull-quote, an
infobox, a mug shot ... something.
How
big is a dollar bill, you ask? Roughly 6 inches wide by 2.5 inches
high.
FYI,
newspaper pages generally are measured in "column
inches." One column inch is one column of
text wide by one (regular) inch high.
The
width of those columns of text varies, particularly between
inside pages and section fronts. For inside pages in
a broadsheet (like the DI), six columns of text
across an inside page is standard, and each column is
around 1.75 inches wide.
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