We
talked about some of the basic principles of story design last week.
For instance:
* Think
rectangles, for "modular" layout.
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* Avoid
making readers jump over elements (pull-quotes, graphics, whatever)
to continue reading the text.
Better
placement options include:
* Below
a headline. For instance, one common place to put a pull-quote
is across two columns of text below a headline that stretches
across three or more columns.
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* Adjacent
to a photo or photos. For instance, a photo/infographic
combination is fairly common.
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Remember,
too, that such elements draw the reader's eye. So you probably
don't want
to place them at the bottom of a column of text ... where they'll
draw the reader's eye right past the story and into an ad or
something else on the page.
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* Place heds so
that they touch the start of the text and cover
all the legs of text.
Decks generally
go immediately
below the main hed though they do not
necessarily have to cover as many columns (or "legs") of text.
For
instance (and of course, the lines are just a visual aid here):
| Here
is my main hed stretching over four text legs |
Here
is my two-column deck
stretching over two text legs |
Here is the third leg of text. The story continues ...
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By Jessa Claeys
Here is the start of my story, which
goes on for another 15 paragraphs. |
Here is the second leg of text.
The story continues ... |
Here is the
fourth leg of text.
The story ends at the bottom of this
leg. |
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* Avoid
legs of text that are really long or really short.
A
good rule of thumb is for legs to be from 2 to 10 inches
long. |
| * Break
up large blocks of text with something more visually interesting.
The "dollar bill rule" can be a rough but helpful guide. |
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* Sometimes
you get lucky: You have multiple photos to go with
a story -- and enough room to run them.
Some guidelines:
* One
photo should be dominant -- bigger and more
eye-catching than the other(s).
Two
photos of equal visual weight confuse the reader.
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* Often,
it's best to pick one horizontal and one vertical photo.
The contrast adds visual interest.
That
said, if your two strongest photos are both verticals or both
horizontals, go ahead and use them together. The designs from
Harrower offer some great options. Notice that in each example,
one photo is clearly dominant.
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* Cutlines can
be placed in various places to create visual interest as well
as provide information.
You
might write separate cutlines for each photo. Or you might
write one cutline to describe more than one photo.
Shared
cutlines can be an especially good way to give a page
some needed white space.
Writing
a cutline that does not fill the entire space available
for it gives the reader's eye a welcome place to rest
in the middle of what otherwise can be a visually busy
package.
Again,
the Harrower pages offer various nice examples.
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By
the way, if you have a cutline that's running under a big horizontal
photo, it will be easier to read if you run it in two "legs" instead
of one long one. Each cutline leg should have the same number of lines
of text:
BIG
HORIZONTAL
PHOTO
HERE
(four columns
wide,
let's
say) |
If
you run the cutline all the way across the four columns,
it can
be daunting for two reasons. One, the reader's eye has
to track back and forth all the way across four columns,
which can be tiring. And two, the cutline creates a
dense text block all its own.
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BIG
HORIZONTAL
PHOTO
HERE
(four
columns wide,
let's say)
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| But if
you run the cutline in two legs, each with the same
number of lines of text, it can be less intimidating
to read. |
And
the "gutter" in between the legs provides white space
to break up the visually heavy photo/cutline combo. |
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* A
thin rule or "box" around
the entire story package -- text, hed(s), photo(s), graphic(s)
and cutline(s) -- can be a nice way to help the reader see immediately
which pieces go together.
The
box creates both unity (within the package) and contrast (between
the package and whatever else is on the page).
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