The old cliché goes, “The clothes make the person.”

A job applicant may be talented and hardworking, but if she or he arrives at an interview for a professional job in a pair ripped up pants and a shirt that hasn’t been washed since 1971, that applicant may not get the job.

Putting together publications is similar.
Whether you’re putting together a newsletter or a flier to announce an event, your goal should be to make all your pages easy to read. Your stories and graphics may be informative and valuable, but if readers have a difficult time finding where they should start reading or the text is too small to read without a magnifying glass, readers will dismiss your work.

Just as professional attire can make a job applicant, a professional-looking, reader-friendly design will help your newsletter or flyer.

There are hundreds of principles of good publication design — for both print and the Web. However, here are few tips to get you started on creating easy-to-read, professional-looking publications:

• Make Text Legible
  Set the size of your body copy to at least 11 or 12 points. This is standard, and studies show these sizes are the most readable given a variety of typefaces and audiences.
• Minimize Italicized, Underlined, and Bold Type
  Italicized, underlined, and bold type are hard to read. Avoid setting more than a word or a sentence in special characters whenever possible. If you do use special characters, make sure there is a very good reason for doing so.
• Avoid Using All Capital Letters
  Even in headlines, it’s hard to read text set in all capital letters. There are many other options for emphasizing type now that we’ve moved beyond the typewritter.
• Minimize Font Styles
  Stick with one or two type families to avoid clutter and confusion. You may be tempted to use a new font for each story, but this looks very unprofessional and will confuse readers who are accustomed to associating different fonts with different kinds of information. A good rule of thumb is to use no more than one font for most of your stories, another for your headings, and a third for special stories.
• Place Type Consistently
  Set standard amounts of space between lines of type, headlines and bylines, subheads and body copy, etc.
• Avoid Tombstone Headlines
  Tombstone headlines appear when two article titles appear side-by-side in different columns, so the two separate headlines look like they merge into a single larger one. To get around tombstoned headlines, try adding subheads or art to your articles, Or, consider using fewer or additional columns.
• Make Sure Headlines Touch the Story
  If you have a headline, it should always “touch” the story. In short, don’t put a photo between your headline and the story. If you have a big image, place it above the headline.
• Avoid Large, Gray Blocks of Text
  These are deserts to readers. Add some interest with subheadings, pull quotes (boxes containing interesting or significant quotes from the story), art work, etc.
• Keep Text Blocks Large Enough to Read
  Avoid breaking text into tiny snippets to run it around an image. This hurts readability and makes the page look messy. Try making the art larger or smaller, or running it across two or more columns. A good rule of thumb: if you can’t fit more than four lines of text under a photo, then you shouldn’t do it.
• Make Photos Easy to Read
  Yes, photos can be hard to read, too. A common mistake is to run photos where the people are too small. A good rule of thumb: if a person’s face is less than the size of a nickel, it’s too small to use.
• Use Backgrounds Carefully
  It’s tempting to put text on top of a photo like you’ve seen in magazines, or to print your publications on colored paper, but be careful when you do. All too often, text gets lost on top of photos that are too busy. And light fonts can be nearly invisible when printed on light paper. Remember, black text on a white background is the easiest thing to read. If you’re going to deviate from that standard, you better make sure you have a good reason and the contrasting colors are just as different as black and white.
  
  

Kevin Leigh Smith, kevlsmith@purdue.edu

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