Desk-top Publishing

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Six Steps to Successful Desktop Publishing

Establish goals and organize your material- Answer the who, what, where, when and why

question


Choose an appropriate format and page layout- What is the overall look, how large, how many

colours, columns, what sort of paper? - What graphics will direct the reader’s eye?


Make appropriate typeface, type size, and spacing decisions- The majority of messages appear as headline

and body copy - create headlines and titles which attract attention with body copy that’s transparent and doesn’t interfere with reader’s ability to quickly understand


Add and manipulate visuals- Replace words with images/visuals where

possible (photographs, illustrations, charts, graphs, tables, organization charts, flowcharts, timelines, etc)

- Each requires careful placement on the page


Build momentum into your pages - You’ve got readers attention, now keep them

interested in your publication- Break material into bite-size chunks by using

organisational devices such as subheads, pull quotes and sidebars.


Refine and fine-tune ‘til you drop- Perfect wholes are the result of perfect detail- Break your project into component parts to

fine tune (a singing group is destroyed by one bad singer)

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Using design to enhance your ideas!

design enhances readership design provides organisation design provides unity design sets your publication apart

Readership Colin Wheildon (Australian) found:

- changes in headline typography can increase readership from 57% to 92%- body copy comprehension jumped from 12% to 67% when a different

typeface was used- subtle changes in line spacing increased body copy comprehension from

77 - 98%- setting body copy on a grey background could reduce comprehension from

70 - 3%- headline colours could reduce comprehension of body type from 67 -17%- revising the layout (with no change to words) can increase readership from

32-67%

Organisation

Effective design provides hierarchy making it easy for readers to tell what is important. - Reduces information overload.

Unity

Create a whole from a series of pages, brochures, newsletters- consistent margins, column placement, graphic

accents, typeface, type size and colour choices- can create a company identity

Individuality

Set your publication apart - project an image - conservatism, contemporary, expensive and

inexpensive

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Design Saves Time!

You make one decision regarding:» typeface

» type size

» margin

» colour

» line settings

This decision will form the template for all documents

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Typefaces refers to a particular design or “look” of a

family of type (eg Times, Helvetica, Prestige)

within each family are variations- bold, semi-bold, condensed, italic, etc

a font is the complete character set including both upper and lower case, punctuations, etc

fonts allow you to instantly and nonverbally communicate atmosphere and image

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Types of fonts

Scaleable - size is easily changed- resident - common fonts pre-loaded

on your computer- downloadable - stored for use when

needed»free downloadable

»discretionary downloadable

Beware

Expanding your font library can cause problems - it takes time to add and remove fonts when you work with them so they are usually left in memory where they reside making programs slow and clutters the font menu making the ones you need harder to find.

You should only use a maximum of 2 - 3 fonts per publication.

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Font Editors

Font Editors Examples:

- Altys Fontographer and Area Font Chameleon

Enables you to change the appearance of letters to your requirements

Kerning Editors

Kerning Editors Example:

- Fontographer

Enable fine-tuning of letter spacing to improve appearance

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Illustration Programs- text manipulation

Free Drawing Microsoft Word 6.0

for Windows Wordart Enables you to stretch

and compress type, distort it, set in circles or at an angle

Specialized Drawing Aldus Freehand,

Adobe Illustrator More versatile

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How to attract your reader’s attention!

create headlines that shout set up a headline typography

- choice of typeface and typesize- choice of line spacing- choice of alignment (columns)

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Choice of typeface and type size family approach larger and bolder versions of the same

typeface - opposites attract approach

headline totally different from body copy- body in serif and headline in sans serif

composite approach - offers opportunity for variety and contrast because typefaces

are designed to work together (choose from a family of typefaces designed to work together)

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Hint

Generally the best looking pages are those using condensed heavy sans serif typefaces for headlines combined with body copy set in an easy-to-read serif typeface.

Condensed typefaces take up less space and have greater impact

Serif and Sans Serif

This is a serif typeface - it is Times New Roman

Serif typefaces have a serif

Serif typefaces have different width strokes

This is a sans serif typeface - it is Arial

Sans serif typefaces have no serif

Sans serif typefaces have regular width strokes

b b

Headlines in Sans Serif - have greater impact but

are harder to read

Body copy in serif is easier to read

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Headlines

Linespacing

reduce linespacing so lines appear closer together - in dtp terms this is called the leading (pronounced ledding) from when printers put lead between the lines to space- saves space- creates white space around the headline

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Headlines

Alignment

centred heading are appropriate for classic, conservative or formal image

overuse indicates a novice approach

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Centred headlines - problem 1

dissipated white space- white space is scattered either side rather than

concentrated to one side- when a headline is set left it is set off by the

large pool of white space to the right, creating more visual impact

Centred headline - problem 2

differing line beginnings- means readers have to search for the beginning

of the line- reduces reading speed


strange shapes- headlines of > 3 lines create distracting shapes

(diamonds, triangles, upside down triangles)- fine tune to get rid of shape by substituting

words or kerning


inadvertent justification- some centred headlines nearly fill the line

which looks like a mistake in left justification


scattered alignment points - readers search for CLOSURE- to locate alignment points in a line’s beginning

and endings - if left justified there is no ambiguity in the design, people won’t try to puzzle out the design

- make your intentions clear in your design


difficult transition to text - people have to move their eye more from the

end of the headline to body copy when the headline is centred

ALWAYS ASK DOES THIS DESIGN MAKE THE READERS JOB EASIER

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Headlines

To capitalize or not don’t use all upper case

- all upper case is harder to read- all upper case takes up more space- all upper case has less white space around -

needs smaller font- lower case are more shapely when put together

don’t capitalize all first letters- only capitalize first letter and proper nouns - confusion regarding new sentence

This is important

Beware

If you decide to use a font specially designed for headings which uses all capitals, be consistent in it’s use - and don’t use it for body copy

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Headlines

Letter Spacing defaults are usually too generous for

headlines tracking - reduces or increases letter spacing

uniformly throughout a range of text kerning - reduces or increases letter spacing

in individual pairs of letters

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Tracking

gains white space to the left or right of the headline

word shapes become more pronounced the larger the headline the more important

tracking becomes In Microsoft Publisher:

Choose Format, Spacing Between Characters. Notice that the default is Normal. Select Tight and print the page. If the letters appear too closely spaced, change to Normal.

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Kerning

distinguishes amateur and professional problems occur when overhanging upper

case letter (T,Y,W) appear next to short lower case letters (a,o,i) or periods or commas (.,)

In Microsoft Publisher:

Choose Format, Spacing Between Characters. From the Spacing Between Characters dialog box, select Between Selected Characters Only and the Squeeze Letters Together. You can now modify letter spacing by clicking the up and down arrows.

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Headlines

Line Breaks and Hyphenation never hyphenate a headline ideally headline should be broken into lines

the same size headline should be kept short if headline is large, increase the size of the

most important part (the beginning)

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Body CopyMaking Type Easy To Read

the aim is to:“produce text so beautiful your readers won’t

even notice it’s there!” Parker R decisions

- what typeface?- what type size?- leading?- alignment?

•avoid long lines of small type

•avoid short lines of large type

x-height

The x-height governs the amount of space needed between lines - how much air is needed between the lines of type- high x-height typefaces look larger that low x

heights (even when both same size)- low x-heights need less leading than high x

heights

p this is the x-height

This is a piece of text to show you how the xheight of different fonts can affect the look of the document.


These are Arial font - both in 28 pt size

normal leading

.8 leading



These are Times New Roman font - 28 pt

normal leading

.8 leading

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Leadingconcerns the x height

fonts with high x height need more leading





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Alignment

2 options- left flush/ right jagged

» different amounts of white space to right

- justified» word spacing is

adjusted, white space equal each side

choice depends on:- image

» left flush/ragged right is friendlier, informal

- line length » avoid narrow columns of justified text as these have

large letter spacings and excessive hyphenation

- available time» justified is more time consuming to get it looking

good

- word density» justified has more words per column

- ease of reading » evidence suggests flush left/ragged right is easier to

read because of consistent word spacing

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Practical Exercise Using the text provided, edit it to produce a

document with headlines which are easy to read and shout to the reader ‘Read Me’

experiment with the kerning and tracking options provided by Microsoft Publisher to provide a professional look

experiment with different leadings and fonts use the spell checking facility using copy and paste produce several versions to

compare, select your best effort and compare it with your neighbour

Conclusion

During this presentation you have seen how fonts can be used to enhance readability, both of headlines and body copy.

You should now be able to adjust kerning, tracking and leading of your text to create a professional look and you should have an idea of which fonts to use.

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