SOME DOS AND DONTS IN GRAPHIC DESIGN

Do Consider Layout Elements:

1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. Margins Columns Visual Cutline Headline Copy Tags

Columns:
Divide your space into vertical columns. Designing with columns not only helps you arrange items neatly on the layout but also makes your copy more inviting to read. Be sure the alley of negative space separating your columns isnt too small or too big. Your goal is enough space to keep columns visually separate but still cohesive.

Visual:
The visual is your tool for capturing the audiences attention. The visual becomes the eye entry point into your layout and is the starting point of viewing flow that takes the audience from top to bottom.

Cutline:
In a news situation, photos and most visuals require captions called cutlines. In many non-news layouts, however, visual speak for themselves and need no cutlines. When considering type for your cutline use the samefont you choose for either your headline or body copy. Point size should be between 9pt and 11 pt.

Headline:
After your visual, your headline should have the most impact on the layout. Many times people will only look at the visual and the headline so make your headline count! Give it visual weight by making it big. For your headline your a font the symbolically goes with your design concept. If you cant get the whole headline onto one line, then let the copy tell you where to break the line. When you read the headline what break flows best for readability.

Copy:
You or someone else has written some excellent copy to go with your layout. 1.  Keep the headline and the lead together. A lead is the first paragraph of your body copy. Dont let anything physically separate the headline and the lead. The eye should finish scanning the headline and flow directly into the lead. 2.  Put your copy into nice inviting columns that say, Read me. If you copy is too short to fill every column, then fill a column with negative space. 3.  Short colmuns are easy for viewers to read. However, if the column is too short it can make for choppy reading. Aim for legs (columns) that are somewhere between 2 and 10 inches long.

Copy Cont.:
Shoot for an average of six to 12 words per line. Dont justify your text Flush left, ragged right is best Other considerations: Dont indent the lead paragraph under the headline. Automactic indents should be roughly four or five letter spaces of your body copys point size. Regarding columns, make sure the the top and bottom of each leg looks elegantt. Really. LOOK AT THEM. Do the bottom of your legs break sentences or paragraphs awkwardly? Do the tops of your legs begin with the last wor of the previous sentence?

Tags:
Tags is an advertising term referring to all the information typically found at the bottom of an advertisement, such as the logo, themeline or slogan, URL, physical address and map, phone number and sometime, disclaimer and legalese. Please tages in the lower right corner. Once people have scanned your layout, their eyes teypically exit in the lower right corner. Tags, if they are being used, are the final things you want viewers to see. You can make tags pretty small as long as they remain legible.

Margins:
Before you do anything else, lay generous margins inside the boundary of your layouton all four sides. Use a minimum of half-inch on a small ad or flyer. The size of the margins should grow in proportion to the size of your layout. The larger the layout, the bigger the marigns. Think of your margins as a big negative-space boder or frame that says, Everything inside here goes together.

13 Donts!!!!
1. Warped Photos 2. Bare Photos 3. Bulky Borders and Boxes 5. Cheated Margins 6. Centering Everything 7. 4 Corners & Clutter 7. Trapped Negative Space 8. Busy Backgrounds 9.  Tacky Type Emphasis: Reversing, Stroking, Using All Caps & Underlining 10. Bad Bullets 11. Widows & Orphans 12. Justified Rivers 13. Things that Blink. Incessantly

1. Warped Photos


You must resize pictures in proportion to their original size. If you reduce the height by 50% then you must reduce the width by 50%.


2. Bare Photos


A bare photograph is a photo that needs a border.

3. Bulky Borders and Boxes

Borders and boxes are like fences. They communicate, Stop. You have to ask yourself what youre fencing in or out. Chunkly borders and boxes are worse because they call attention to themselves. Yusually you want to call attention to whats inside the border, not the border itself.

4. Cheated Margins


You must resize pictures in proportion to their original size. If you reduce the height by 50% then you must reduce the width by 50%.


5. Centering Everything

Amateurs tend to center everything. While centered content can communicate traditional, formal and conservative, it also creates visual flow issues. Left or right aligned layouts five the viewers eye a nice straight vertical line on the right or left to follow top to bottom. Centered layouts have no such line. The eye bounces around in search of the next eye entry point.

6. Corners & Clutter



Avoid the temptation to fill up all four corners of the layout, along with every bit of space. The results in clutter which is unappealing and confusing. Rather than spreading out your layouts content to fill every corner, group items together that belong together.

7. Trapped Negative Space



Trapped space is a puddle of negative space landlocked inside the layout. Because it draws attention away from your other layout items it can become a distraction.


8. Busy Backgrounds

The whole point to a layout is to balance the busyness of positive space visuals and type. Dont turn your negative calming space into busy cluttered postive space that competes with your visuals and type. Backgrounds shouldnt

interfer with your visual communication.

9. Tacky Type Emphasis: Reversing, stroking,



using all caps and underlining

Reversing, stroking, all caps and underling. Think twice before you do any of these tings, and NEVER do all four at once. Reversing, use spareingly.

10. Bad Bullets



Simple but elegant dots or numerals are almost always a good choice. Asterisks, hyphens, and smiley faces are not. For decorative bullets, match their tone to your design.  ulleted lists require proper alignments. Bulleted lists require B hanging indents in which the bullets or numberals line up together in the margin. Then the type all hangs together, too, in

a separate vertical line.

11. Widows & Orphans



A typographic widow refers to a few lonely words or a hyphenated word stranded at the bottom of a column or leg of type. An orphan refers to a few lonely words stranded at the top of a leg. Train your eye to spot visual awkwardness.


12. Justified Rivers

Fully justified blocks of type can result in wide gaps between words. This cuts down on the readability by producing visually distracting rivers of white space flowing through your text.


13. Things that Blink. Incessantly.

To be reviews later.