Design and layout

Not just about appearance

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Design and layout

Design: the overall appearance of the newspaper/ publication. A style for the newspaper/ magazine/ web page Layout: day-to-day use of principles of design

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Why is design important?

Principles of designed have evolved over the years from both technology as well as practice and science Purpose of design is to facilitate effective communication and also guide the readers/ viewers easily and efficiently through the page Need to understand first of all, news values and copy editing besides typography, principles of design, forms of layout and the language of design/ the visual
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Design and layout covers

Principles of design Elements of design Types of layout Dummy and process of creating dummy

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Visual logic
We look at objects Big to small Top to bottom And left to right: comes from the direction in which we read. Some languages read right to left or top to bottom Dark to light. Notice darker objects first/ colourful objects as opposed to black/ white Generally applies, not absolute
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Principles of design
1. 2. 3. 4. 5. Balance Contrast Proportion Unity Economy/ utility: elements of design are meant to aid communication, not to call attention to itself

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Principles of design balance

Place elements in a way as to ensure all of them have the chance to be seen Balance is achieved with the placement of weighted elements headlines/photos/ artwork/ white space Pages with a lot of pictures or heavy typography in one particular part of the page is said to be heavy
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Principles of design balance

Types of balance: formal and informal Formal balance: required the left side to be matched with right side in terms of amount of text, weight of headlines Formal balance was dictated by form, not by content Top-to-bottom balance was not possible; big, bold headlines and large photos dominated the top of page while the bottom almost faded away into oblivion
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Principles of design balance

The weights of different elements of the page balance the page Informal balance is better: page is divided into quadrants and right is balanced against left and top with bottom. Each quadrant must contain some graphic mass or weight: headline, photo, art work, white space; weighted elements can extend beyond the boundaries of the quadrant
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Principles of design balance

A page has an optical centre: slightly above the measured centre of a page The major design element story/ photo must generally be placed slightly to the left of the optical centre Edmond Arnold, author of books of page design says that the first place a reader looks is the top left corner of page. Primary Optical Area. The lower right corner is called Terminal Area. Both have strong visual attraction. Other 2 corners: fallow corners.
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Principles of design balance

According to Arnold, eye moves in a Z shape across the page Reader stops at optical magnets along the way: at photos or headlines

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Principles of design balance

Designer Mario Garcia argues differently. The POA and the TA need not be located in corners of page He talks about Centre of Visual Impact. Can be located anywhere on page. This becomes the point of entry into a page Says only one CVI should be used on a page, or else the impact of the main one would be reduced. Photos, headlines, typography can all be used
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Principles of design contrast

Relationship of design elements as they are viewed by the eye; especially the difference between these elements Emphasize one element by diminishing (size)/ different other elements headlines, body copy, photos/ images Can be achieved by size, colour, visual impact, type, Colour border/ placing text against a coloured block Text: use of serif/ sans serif types for headlines, captions, body text Horizontal elements are contrasted with vertical, especially wit non-textual elements, both with text blocks and images
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Principles of design proportion

Ratio between elements on a page: the shape of elements on a page, and relationship of these elements to each other. 3:5 is a pleasing ratio, according to artists: basically rectangle shapes and not squares Headline should be in proportion to size of story, other headlines on page Not necessary of course, to follow this rule always One square shape surrounded by rectangles would make it the focal point
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Principles of design unity

Essentially style for design Achieved by developing consistent patterns of design: section heads, headlines, captions, column logos, placement of columns etc. Also means to design packages out of related stories in modules: rectangles. Includes both textual and non-textual material

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Elements of design
1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. Body type Display type/ headlines Borders / rules Open space/ white space Art: photographs, graphics, illustrations Colour Video and sound (for television and internet)
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Elements of design body type

Body type is usually in 8- or 9- point type with 1 point of leading (line spacing) Newspapers have eight columns Alignment: usually hyphenated and justified, meaning even edges on both the left and right of each column. Sometimes, the right side is left ragged

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Elements of design headlines

Headlines summarise news and also grade the newsworthiness of a story Headlines introduce large areas of black-andwhite and make the page look more interesting Size: 14-point to 72 point, even larger for extraordinary thing occurs Banner headlines on page 1. ribbons or streamers are also banner heads but smaller. Used on inside pages
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Elements of design headlines

Deck: smaller headlines just underneath main headline; gives reader more info about story Kicker: small headlines above main headline; used when white space is required; kicker is half the size of main headline and 1/3 of the length of main headline Jumphead: appears above a story as it continues on another page. Has to contain words that indicate the story is the same as on earlier page Upstyle headline: when all the words except prepositions are capitalised. Downstyle: only first word and proper nouns capitalised.
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Elements of design borders

Variety of borders are used to separate one page element from another Advertisements are boxed, some with ornamental borders Stories can also be boxed, but with simple plain lines called rules; rules are placed along the edge of column, body type and art work must be narrower. 1-point rules Can also be used as design elements for page headers, column logos, and as cut offs to separate unrelated elements. These would be heavy rules.
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Elements of design open space/ white space

Helps achieve unity of design Consistent amounts of open space between columns of type between photographs and captions, above and below headlines, between masthead and rest of page, between headline and byine, between the first para and byline Use lots of white space for pages with too much text: editorial pages Should not allow white space pockets on the inside of the page. It should be on the outside, bordering the elements on the rest of the page. More white space is there on features pages, supplements to distinguish between news and features

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Elements of design art work

Mostly turns out to be the dominant element on a page So the appropriate size has to be decided based on news values. Art work also helps break up chunks of text blocks and provides relief to the eye as an element of design, besides functioning as editorial content
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Elements of design colour

Colour in paragraphs/ art work Response to colour is both learned and inherited. Response to colour depends on age, sex, gender, intelligence, education, temperature, ckimate, socio-economic background, regional attitudes Colour is used to draw attention to content; avoid using too much colour.
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Elements of design colour

Use colour as connector: use colour to link similar items such as infographic, text so the layout looks like a whole rather than random parts Use colour for type, illustration and graphics avoid using colour as a screen ()

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Types of layout
Three types of layout: vertical, horizontal, modular Vertical: New York Times, Wall Street Journal use vertical layout. Columns of type run down vertically on page. Headlines are usually not more than two columns. Earlier papers were broader, had 8 or 9 columns. Today 6 columns which are wider; easy to design and compose Horizontal: headlines, photos run across several columns Today mostly modular layouts are used: neither vertical nor horizontal. Elements are designed in rectangles
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Total design
It is very important to learn to visualise the total design of the paper. It takes time to see the design, even on printed page Helps if layout editor draw heavy black lines around each story to see how the page looks then total page design can be critically examined Helps layout editors to develop feeling for page structure, and would help create effective and aesthetic creative designs
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dummy
Laying out a page. Term from before desktop publishing became a reality Dummying done by layout editors and then sent to composing room where the page is physically laid out Dummy page should be proportional to the actual page; should be neat and legible; should have columns marked clearly
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Dummy process
Select stories based on news values Place standing items: mast head, page head, page numbers, refers, page numbers, weather boxes Choose and position the dominant element: a photo, art work, info graphic, or a combination of photo and story Then choose headline size and column spread
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References
Journalism Who, what, when, where, why and how by James Glen Stovall Creative Editing by Dorothy A. Blowles and Diane L. Borden

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