Layout
Consistency
Whatever design elements you select be consistent throughout your document. All body text should be the same font and size—the same with headings, footers, etc. To help you maintain consistency in your document, consider using styles. By applying styles to the different text elements in your document you maintain consistency throughout. They are also convenient should you change your mind. Simply change the style and all instances of its use will be changed throughout your document.
Restraint
Remember that just because you can do something doesn’t mean you should! By using some restraint in your design you produce a much more sophisticated and easily read document. Too many fonts, type sizes, etc., can overwhelm a document and your readers can be distracted from the message.
Detail
Take time to pay attention to the details. The smallest offense can sabotage your document. Watch for widows and orphans, separated headlines, and rivers of white space usually created when you use extra spaces after a period (more than one), especially with justified text.
Proximity
This will help you to organize your document. Group related items together; elements that are intellectually connected, that have some sort of communication relationship, should also be visually connected. If there are too many separate items, see which ones should be set closer to each other (e.g., headlines with text); don’t be afraid of white space. Avoid too many separate elements on a page or sticking things in the corners and in the middle. To avoid confusion over whether a headline, subhead, caption, graphic, etc., belongs with its related material, place them closer together. Don’t create relationships with elements that don’t belong together. If items are related to each other, group them into closer proximity. Separate items that are not directly related to each other. Vary the space between to indicate the closeness or the importance of the relationship.
Alignment
Use alignment to unify and organize your document. Nothing should be placed on the page arbitrarily. Every item should have a visual connection with something else on the page. Centered alignment is the most common alignment that beginners use—it’s very safe, it feels comfortable. If you’re going to center text, then at least make it obvious. If you’re going to center the type, experiment with making it more dramatic in some other way. One problem beginners have is a subtle lack of alignment—centered headlines and subheads over indented paragraphs. Don’t center headlines over flush left body copy or text that has an indent. If the text does not have a clear left and right edge, you can’t tell the headline is actually centered. It looks like it’s just hanging around.
First paragraphs after headlines or at the beginning of the document are traditionally not indented. The purpose of indenting a paragraph is to tell you there is a new paragraph, but you always know the first one is a paragraph.
On a typewriter you indented five spaces or half an inch. With proportional type the standard indent is one em (an em is as wide as the point size of your type), which is more like two spaces.
Type is not the only alignment to consider. You must also consider how graphic elements are aligned on the page. Avoid using more than one text alignment on the page. Unless you are consciously trying to create a more formal, sedate (often dull?) presentation, avoid using a centered alignment. Be conscious about every element you place on the page. To keep the entire page unified, align every object with an edge of some other object. If your alignments are strong, then you can choose to break an alignment occasionally and it won’t look like a mistake.
Justified or ragged?
Justified means that all lines in a column of type are set to the same length so that you have a neat right-hand margin as well as a neat left-hand margin. Ragged means having lines of varied lengths, so the margins are not neat but look ragged. Left-aligned (ragged-right) is what is usually implied when text is set ragged, because right aligned (ragged-left) is seldom used except in special situations, such as picture captions. The reason for the rarity of right-aligned text is simply the difficulty of reading it in bulk.
Left-aligned text reads better since we recognize words as groups of letters combined into a single visual image. It also avoids those rivers of white space that often appear when you use a justified setting. You can control the degree of raggedness by using hyphenation.
Repetition
Use repetition to unify and to add visual interest. Repeat some aspect of the design throughout the entire piece. Headlines and subheads are a good place to start. Avoid repeating the element so much that it becomes annoying or overwhelming. Repetition is a strong form of being consistent. Look at the elements you already repeat (bullets, typefaces, lines, colors, etc.); see if it might be appropriate to make one of these elements stronger and use it as a repetitive element.
Contrast
Use contrast to create interest on the page and to aid in the organization of the information. You can add contrast in many ways—rules (lines), typefaces, colors, spatial relationships, directions, etc. Squint your eyes and look at the pages of your document. Are there contrasts or is it just a blob of gray? If two items are not exactly the same, then make them different—really different. Slight differences can look like a mistake. Avoid contrasting a sort-of-heavy line with a sort-of-heavier line and using two or more typefaces that are similar (if the items are not exactly the same, make them different). Don’t be a wimp—if you’re going to contrast, do it with strength.
Don’t be afraid to create your design with plenty of blank space—it’s rest for the eyes. Don’t be afraid to be asymmetrical, to uncenter your format—it often makes the effect stronger. It’s okay to do the unexpected. Don’t be afraid to make words very large or very small. Both can be effective in the right place. Don’t be afraid to make your graphics very bold or very minimal, as long as the result complements or reinforces your design.
Spacing
Sentences
Insert only a single space after all punctuation. The two spaces after periods, question marks, exclamation marks, and colons probably originated with high school typing teachers. When using a monospaced font such as the courier font that was used on typewriters, that extra space is needed to distinguish the end of a sentence. However, with proportionately spaced fonts that we use on our computers now, this is no longer necessary. The extra space you need is incorporated into the font. Having two spaces after a period can cause unsightly gaps in your text, especially if it is justified. The computer is not a typewriter so begin to re-train yourself. Until it becomes a habit, you can always use the Replace feature in your software to look for two spaces and replace them with one space.
Paragraphs
Rather than inserting two returns at the end of a paragraph, set your paragraph style to incorporate the extra space needed and use only one return. Or indicate a new paragraph with a tab rather than an extra line between paragraphs. Be sure to set your tab to the width of your type size.
Measurement
It’s bad enough that we have to deal with our standard measuring system (inches, feet, ounces, gallons, etc.) and convert that to decimals when entering information into dialog boxes in our software. And then there’s the metric system (centimeters, meters, liters, grams) we often run into when reading scientific data or information from other countries. But a completely different system for printing? This is too much!
The printing industry measures in points and picas. Let’s face it, one point is much easier to remember and notate than .01383 inches. And points and picas are a bit more exact since you’re not dealing with rounding off decimal places. There are 12 points in one pica and six picas in one inch. And, yes, you can get used to measuring in points and picas. After a time, you even begin to see the sizes in your mind’s eye.