Hot answers tagged page-layout
16
Well… your bullet doesn't have to be silver as long as you hit a vital spot.
Sadly, there isn't one. There's an awful lot of people who are unable to visualize design (thankfully, otherwise we'd all be wearing foam hot-dog suits for a living), which is why they come to us. A few points you should try to make:
1) "I'm the expert, and you would be wasting ...
14
Western language visitors read left-right, top down. Go to any Hebrew or Arabic website and where's the logo? Top right. The convention originates, I suspect, from letterhead design. Early websites were analogs of paper, and that analogy still dominates web design, although we're gradually weaning off it. The other common analogy, a store front, still has ...
11
As DA01 mentions, having a focal point doesn't necessarily mean the page will be unbalanced. It's good to have at least one focal point in the sense of accentuating the main message(s), for example a call to action.
Now, elements can be distributed differently across a design and still be balanced (if you are using a grid, then you start with a certain ...
10
A good analogy I heard regarding this problem that you can use on the client is this: take a look at how a Wal-Mart is laid out versus how a high end retailer like Nordstrom's or Von Maur is laid out. The Wal-Mart is cluttered and stacked wall to wall with as much stuff as they can fit in there while the high end stores have their product displayed with ...
10
Advertising. While it's a noble idea that it was done for readability, newspapers, in general, have columns that are overly narrow compared to most given readability information/data.
Having multiple columns allows for a very versatile ad grid, and, traditionally, newspapers were in the business of selling ads.
It also allows more stories to appear on ...
10
The idea of a 'baseline grid' tends to be abused...especially on the web.
The baseline grid is really for use in multi-column publications. The idea is to have consistent horizontal 'lines' across all the columns.
And it should be used by default, but you should also know when NOT to use it.
Your bulleted list example is a good case where it's probably ...
9
Linked below is a short but good read summarizing different studies on line lengths. Studies were done as far back as the 1880s demonstrating that optimal line-length for reading was between 3.6 - 4 inches. Even 50 years later, this was still the deal:
One of the best studies was done by Tinker and Paterson in 1929. Using 10-point black type on white ...
9
Yes. Do one or more of these:
Use larger text
Use a bolder or simpler typeface
Use a spot colour, varnish, foil or clear laminate for the text
Increase the tonal contrast:
If your text is black, make it rich black and/or slightly lighten the darkest areas of the image
If your text is reversed out (white paper), slightly darken the lightest areas of the ...
8
I used Scribus recently on a personal project. For an OS GD app, it's quite impressive. I'd definitely put it above PageMaker in terms of usability and features. that said, it's far from finished and does have some annoying quirks (such as you can't undo text edits).
InDesign is pretty high end, but for personal, smaller project, Scribus might be just ...
8
Not to detract from lawndartcatcher's excellent answer, there are some additional pointers that might help:
Don't ever make the client wrong, especially when they are. Clients are human (for the most part, anyway), and if there's one thing a human can't stomach it's being wrong. This is so much the case that proving to someone that they're wrong absolutely ...
7
The 2 fixed columns with 1 fill column has been referred to as "The Holy Grail" of CSS layouts.
Check out: http://www.alistapart.com/articles/holygrail/
The example on that page is geared for fixed gutters and variable center column, but the concept is the same.
7
Are there any objective reasons to prefer one layout over the other?
Yes. But they're usually tied to context--namely the specific goals and type of content being displayed.
In other words, yes, one can find objective reasons to do it one way or the other, but it's going to vary based on the content, users, amount of content, type of tables, etc. And ...
6
This is going to be somewhat dependent:
on the parts of the world you are targeting
what parts of a name you need to include (middle names/initials?)
any other abbreviations that might be needed (Mrs, Dr, PhD, MSc?)
characters used in names, unless of course you're using a monospaced font
I don't think there's any substitute for sample test data from ...
6
I think you are asking about the graphical implementation of an overshoot, commonly used in typography. In short, overshoot is added to letters like A and O (pointy or round—like circle in your example) to visually make them look the same height as f.ex. H and X ("flat", rectangle-like).
The sources of the Wikipedia article suggest overshoot of 1–3 % or 5 ...
6
This is a difficult question. What you are asking for is a checklist which includes the set of everything. The answer is really "no" there is no checklist, and "no" fancy DTP software will not help you: DTP software is designed to be open ended and non-rigid.
That said, your ideal checklist is going to be the specific template guidelines and a list of all ...
6
Just by looking at the final page layout? I don't think there's really any easy way to tell in most cases regardless of the type of publication. I think that if a layout engine has been refined to produce good layouts and a human has cleaned up the results (i.e., Xtags with QuarkXpress), then it would be all but impossible to tell.
Science and math ...
6
The difference is really seen in line breaks, capabilities, and edit ability.
Text wraps are self aware. They see the object being wrapped and adjust when that object changes. Increase the dimensions of a wrapped object and the text reflows to work around new dimensions. Most apps also provide a method to adjust the offset of wrapped text. So you can ...
6
Sorry to be boring, but I've always found that "opening paragraph" does the job. Typography books often describe them this way too. Never seen a separate term.
If you call it the 'opening paragraph' rather than simply the 'first paragraph', that implies you're treating it as special or distinct, without implying anything specific about how it's written ...
5
Short answer: No.
Better answer: What you're really trying to do is add cut lines. Crop marks are only used as guides for trimming the edges of a sheet. So if you make a one-up document and export that to PDF with crop marks, you can place the PDF four times in your layout and voila! -- Internal "crop" marks!
If you're sending this to press, rather than ...
5
There is no silver bullet. As you know, part of being a designer is about being a salesman. The sales process does not stop when you land the gig. You have to sell every idea you have, and time and time again convince your client that your idea is better, or else risk being seen as their monkey who is simply responsible for taking what is in their head and ...
5
Adobe InDesign or QuarkXPress. These are desktop publishing programs, which are designed to do exactly what you want to do (among many other things): lay out printed pieces like a magazine.
5
In professional design circles, "layout" and "Word" don't generally appear in the same sentence unless accompanied by various expletives unsuitable for a public forum. So it's not hard to get better than that.
What's best for you very much depends on your needs. You're asking professionals for an opinion, and naturally enough we tend to suggest the tools we ...
5
Small columns of text are easier to read than large ones. Imagine a newspaper sized line that stretched across an entire page. It would be very easy to skip a line. Using columns can make it easier to read, especially when the focus is on text on very large papers.
The same concept is used in brochures, which tend to be folded over paper.
5
It's probably time to hang up a shingle and promote yourself as a freelancer, at least for the time being. Acquent is one good place to start. Make yourself a fantastic-looking business card, carry everywhere and give out freely.
Although you can always poke around for pro bono work for local charitable or religious organizations, these aren't the best for ...
5
Problems with baseline grids are easier to resolve if you keep in mind this overriding rule: the only purpose of graphic design is to facilitate communication. That's what you are hired for, what you are paid for, and what you are depended upon to do. A grid (or any other design element) is useful an appropriate only if it achieves that purpose.
Information ...
5
I always use tabs with an underline leader.
The method of creating lines, then anchoring them in text makes for sloppy editing later. And using repeated underscores doesn't allow for proper alignment.
Another option, depending upon desired design, is to use Paragraph Rules:
If I want anything containing more rules than these two methods I move to ...
5
Line lengths are usually measured in words or characters per line (or at least in my experience). I don't think print and digital are any different — the same general rules of typography apply. Short lines can create design issues and slow reading down, long lines can be unwieldy.
This study may be helpful:
This study examined the effects of line length ...
5
Other than aesthetics, I would take two factors into consideration:
1) How much do you need to set off the bullets? Are they just sub-thoughts of the ongoing text, or are they more like pull quotes which really need to be separated?
2) Do you have additional levels of hierarchy? If each level of bullets has a right indent, your margins are going to get ...
5
Just a few rules I follow myself...
Always zebra stripe, never border
Always different appearing header rows
The problem with most tables is, well, they look tabular. :) I try and diminish the appearance of a rectangle as much as possible and favor horizontals so they are more in line with simple text.
In addition, tabular data can often be reflected in ...
4
Why don't you look over your last five or ten submissions, make a note of all the mistakes which someone flagged, and turn that into a checklist? If three of your last four papers had tables which leaked over the margins, you know that when you're done and you print out your proof copy, you have to take a pencil and draw a line down the right-hand margin of ...
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