12 Tricks To Sell Your Message

There may not be any hard and fast rules for graphic design, but there are some basic considerations every professional must make when designing a document. The designed document must be appropriate for the audience and its content. It should be consistent to avoid confusion and it should avoid static balance that creates boredom for the reader. Be willing to experiment, but remember your success will be measured on how well you present your message.

The difference between an amateur document and a professional one can be a matter of details. The following 12 suggestions should help you design for impact and clarity.

1. Establish a format

An established format will make it easier for a reader to understand the points you want to make. A format keeps your reader from getting lost in the information. It will also set your document apart from others. You will want to plan your document before you begin. You will want to standardize your margins and organize your body copy into columns. Good document design is mainly a combination of common sense and keeping things simple. Be careful with line length. Long lines of text are hard to read. Generally, a line should have 55 to 60 characters, or 9 to 10 words. A good rule of thumb when using justified text is that the line length in picas should be at least twice the type size in points. Left justification is easier to read and looks less formal than full justification. Choose the one that matches the tone of your document. Graphs, pictures and charts add interest to your documents and clarify your text. Horizontal and vertical lines should be used sparingly to break up blocks of text.

2. Use white space wisely

Don't attempt to pack too much information or too many design elements into a document. The white space you leave can help you increase the impact of your message. Too much information may distract the reader from the message you really want to convey. Give your graphics and type some room on the page to breathe. White space can be used to emphasize your elements and help guide your audience through the design.

3. Use color to set your document apart from others

Color will increase the impact of your document. Colored ink can highlight borders, rules or headlines. It can also be an organizing element used to departmentalize the document or to draw attention to certain areas. Even colored paper can have an effect on the reader, but use color sparingly. Too much color will cause it to lose impact. Color gains impact when used selectively. Bright colors indicate excitement and subdued colors can add dignity.

4. Choose the right typeface

Avoid using more than two type families on a page; generally, one serif and one sans serif make a nice mix. Using the sans serif for headlines and the serif for body text is a common and familiar formula. Don't underline text unless absolutely necessary. Avoid text in all-capital letters.

Professional typographers use bold and italic type for emphasis within sentences-not underlines. Use bolds and italics sparingly; it is easy to overuse them and ruin the "look" of your text. Words in all-capital letters are more difficult to read and can be distracting; however, if very strong emphasis is indicated by the wording, i.e., HELP!, all caps may be appropriate. Don't use all-capital words in headings unless in a slightly smaller size than the non-capitalized words around them.

Page layout programs allow you to modify existing typefaces by condensing or expanding them. As a good general rule, condensing or expanding the characters in a typeface should not exceed 85 percent. A higher percentage will cause the weight of the letters to be disproportional. Changes in the weight of the letters can become noticeable. Never compress or expand a typeface in order to achieve copyfitting. It is always better to use effective tracking and spacing techniques to adjust your column width than to play with the proportions of a font. Any extreme modifications to the height or width creates a perversion of the font, which can become distracting to the reader. Most type companies offer condensed and expanded fonts if you find them necessary.

5. Careful with that spacebar

The rules for typing have changed with the increased use of computers. You no longer hit the spacebar twice to add space after periods, colons, exclamation points, question marks, etc. You never use multiple spaces to align text into columns. Always set tabs. The spacebar on the computer is a "variable" space, meaning that the width assigned to it depends on the width of the text around it. The computer will adjust the space for you. For example, justified text is achieved because the computer automatically varies the width of each space to force all the type flush against the right and left margins.

Most of us were taught in typing class to add a double space after periods. Fonts are designed with the letter pairs kerned, which means that when the combination of, let's say, a period and a spacebar are keyed, a wider space is assigned than if the space was between two letters.

6. Use tabs to position type on a line

Never use the space bar to position type at a certain point on a line. Since the spacebar uses variable space, it may be difficult to align type from one line to the next because of the other text used in the line. Also, avoid using the spacebar to format paragraph indents or align columns. Always set tabs.

7. Use quotation marks correctly

The quotation marks many typists use are really inch marks. The professional designer uses the true, curved quotation marks provided in the typeface. The real quotation marks curve into the type. Most advanced page layout programs and word processing programs have a feature called "smart" quotations. This feature automatically inserts quotation marks into the text when the inch mark key is pressed.

8. Avoid too many hyphens

Too many hyphenated line breaks in a row creates unattractive text that is difficult to read. As a general rule, three hyphens in a row should be your maximum. Discretionary hyphens can be placed where you prefer a word to split. Most computer programs provide for a discretionary hyphen. As you key the text, watch all your line breaks carefully; then go back over the text you have entered and edit every single line of the document. While this may take a little extra time and effort, the payoff is the professional "look" your text can create.

9. Use the right dashes and hyphens

A professional looking publication can be affected by the smallest detail. There is a difference between dashes and hyphens.

Em dashes - organize phrases and clauses within a sentence. Whether the em dash has a space before and after is the choice of the typist, but consistency and uniformity are very important to the overall look of your document. Guide-lines should be established on this point.

En dashes - indicate duration (i.e., 10:00 am-12 noon) or location (i.e., University of California-Santa Crutz). If the words "thru," "of" or "at" can be used in place of the dash, then an en dash is appropriate. Never space before or after an en dash.

Hyphens - are punctuation for individual words only and should not be used to punctuate sentences. You should never use two hyphens in place of an em dash nor should you ever space before and seldom after, a hyphen.

10. Avoid widows and orphans

Widows and orphans ruin the aesthetics of text and should be avoided whenever possible. A widow is a single word on the last line of a paragraph. An orphan is a single line of a paragraph at the bottom or top of a column of text. Because of the white space they create, both interrupt the reader's eye as it flows across the page.

11. Use type as part of the design

Headlines, subheads and captions are an important element in your design. Headlines organize your material and strengthen your message. They help focus the reader to the page. Use upper and lower case letters in the headline. All caps is too hard to read. Subheads provide a transition from the headline to the body copy. They will guide the reader through large blocks of type. Short, to-the-point captions are one of the most widely read parts of your design. They should compliment the pictures, not compete with the body copy. When using headlines, subheads and captions, always remember consistency. They should be the same throughout the design.

12. Pull quotes reinforce ideas

A pull quote is a short quotation used as a graphic device to summarize surrounding material and draw attention to it. As a design element, it can be set in large type, reversed or boxed. It is used to break up large amounts of body copy and keep the document from becoming too gray. Reversed type helps call out pull quotes as a graphic element. Many designers prefer large san serif typefaces when doing a reverse pull quote. Screens, boxes and borders will also attract attention to the pull quotes as well as the page.