Tip 1: Designing With Your Computer Turned Off
Many new designers are surprised to learn that the best way to start is often to make rough sketches using a pencil and paper. Although these sketches don’t take much time, they often jumpstart your creativity and help you identify arrangements of text and graphics that can lead to far more creative results than if you immediately start laying out text and graphics using your page layout program.
You don’t have to be a talented illustrator — or even able to draw a straight line — to brainstorm designs using a pencil and paper. Your drawings don’t have to be accurate or literal. Your only goal is to sketch out the relative size and placement of text and graphic elements. There will be plenty of time later for you to fine-tune the details of your page layouts.
Try to come up with at least 5 rough sketches for each new project.
Tip 2: Choosing the Right Type Size
Here is a quick reminder on choosing the right type size for your design project.
Type is measured in points; there are 72 points to an inch. Some typical type sizes for various publication parts are:
Body copy: 11 or 12 points
Subheads introducing new paragraphs: 12-14 points
Headlines: 18, 24, or 36 points
Captions underneath photographs: 10 points
Headers (information repeated at the top of each page), and footers (information repeated at the bottom of each page): 8 to 10 points
Tip 3: Half-Point Differences in Type Size
If you layout body copy using the standard 12-point type, and you realize that the copy does not fit, take the time to experiment with half-point differences in type size. At 11.5 points, the body copy is still easy to read. You may be surprised at the difference a half point can make when trying to fit all your copy in a specific amount of space!
Tip 4: One Space or Two?
One question we receive a lot at AWAI is, “How many spaces should there be after a period?” The answer is, “One.” However, there will be times when you receive a Word document for layout that contains 2 spaces after the period. There is an easy way to eliminate the unwanted space. Use your layout program’s Find and Replace feature to eliminate any extra spaces. This also works in Word for Windows.
Tip 5: When to Use an En-Dash vs. an Em-Dash
An en-dash (–) is a dash that is one en long. It is used to connect continuing or inclusive numbers or to indicate duration.
Examples:
November 1–4, 2006
May–December
An em-dash (—) is a dash that is one em long. It is used to indicate a break in thought or sentence structure, to introduce a phrase added for emphasis, definition, or explanation, or to separate two clauses.
Example:
This market is HOT — growing at a rapid rate of 7.9% a year — and is estimated to become a whopping $11.9 billion industry by 2008.
In Microsoft Word, these characters are part of the symbol library. Select Insert > Symbol from the menu, and click on the Special Characters tab.
All graphic design programs have a similar symbol library and shortcuts for creating these characters.
Tip 6: Hyphenation Guideline
Hyphenation refers to the process of splitting a multi-syllabic word that is too long to fit at the end of a line, allowing it to begin at the end of one line and end at the beginning of the next line. Hyphenating text often eliminates awkward spacing. Columns of text should be hyphenated, regardless of whether you’re working with flush-left/ragged-right text or justified text.
However, try to avoid excessive use of hyphenation. Avoid hyphenating three lines in a row. If you find your page layout program automatically hyphenating more than a few lines in each paragraph, it may be because you are using a type size too large for the line length you’re working with.
Tip 7: Stock Photography
Stock photos can make a design quite expensive. If your design includes just 5 or 6 photos at around $150 each, the total cost can easily add up to $900 or more. Sometimes a particular design project may require these high-end stock photos, which can be found on websites such as www.comstock.com or www.jupiterimages.com.
But for projects that are on a tight budget, stock photography does not have to cost a fortune. There are online stock photography agencies that offer photos and illustrations for as little as $1 for web quality and $3 for high-resolution. Their selection used to be very limited; however, in the last couple of years, these agencies have added a large amount of very high-end images. Go to www.istockphoto.com or www.dreamstime.com
Tip 8: Resizing Photographs
Although page layout programs permit you to “resize” photographs, as well as crop them (remove unwanted photo information from the edges of a photograph), they actually remain at their original size when you use this tool. The image may look smaller, but your publication file is still carrying around a lot of unnecessary information. And that can slow down your software program, and sometimes lead to memory problems or system crashes. So, it is recommended that you resize photographs in an image-editing program — such as Photoshop or Corel Paint Shop Pro — before placing them in a publication.
Also, when graphics files are unnecessarily large, it takes more time to transmit them to clients or commercial printers. Keep in mind that most commercial printers prefer to have access to your original files, in case additional color or exposure correction is necessary. So always provide the original artwork files, as well as your publication files.
Tip 9: People in Photographs
Here's a good tip to remember when working with photographs of people:
If a close-up of a person's face is shown, the person in the photo is perceived to be more intellectual. If more of the person's body is revealed, he or she appears to be less intellectual and more physical, playful or even sexy.
If you are designing a letter or brochure for a financial service or health product, try to crop people photos close to their face. The person in the photo will look more sincere than when you show his or her full body. If you are designing for a fashion or fitness product, show as much of the person's body in the picture as possible, since the message demands a more physical look.
Cropped close to the face, the person
appears to be more serious and intellectual.
The same photo has a completely different
impact when zoomed out to show the person's body.
Tip 10: How to Jazz Up Your Portfolio
When Dennis Rome decided to attend AWAI’s Graphic Design Bootcamp, he wanted to take a really “jazzed-up” portfolio – something different, something that would really stand out.
In Inside Freelance Design Issue #11, Dennis explains what he did, using iPhoto and his Mac, for under $40. To read his story, go to the IFD Archives at:
http://www.thedesignerslife.com/insidefreelancedesign/
Keep in mind that iPhoto only works with Mac OS, but PC users can get similar software – MyPublisher BookMaker – free at www.mypublisher.com.