DOCUMENT DESIGN

PAPIA BAWA

What makes a document effective?

Appearances count. The documents that get read are those that:

Appear easy to read

Appear interesting

Appear brief

Appear important

What a good layout does:

Removes obstacles to reading.

Exposes good organization.

Enhances the language.

Physically show the relationships between ideas or things.

Obstacles to reading

The centering of headings and other textual component.

Changing internal spacing order to force the text to fill out a fixed depth and width.

Continued:

The inconsistent grouping.

The excessive use of indentation, suggesting paragraph breaks where they aren't really needed.

And lastly:

An excessive variety in sizes, styles, and weights of typefaces for heading levels.

Other issues you need to consider:

Are there format restrictions for this type of document?

Are there limits on length?

Other limits:

Time?

Budget?

Availability of staff?

Accessibility to equipment?

Components of graphic design:

Structure, topical divisions.

Type, size and style.

White space, margins and open spaces.

Special treatments, for emphasis.

Paper, type and color.

Features in office word-processing system:

Choice of typeface

Capitalization

Bullets and daggers

White space

Quotation marks

Bold face

Indentation

Remember:

1. The largest, most dominant matter on the page first attracts the eye.

2. In the absence of any special feature or guide to eye movement, the eye will start slightly off center and travel in a clockwise direction.

Type face and font size:

The term typeface refers to the family of lettering used in the document.

A font is a variation of a certain typeface, including size, italic, bold, and italic bold.

Types of typefaces:

Serif

Sans serif

Display

Decorative

Serif:

These have small horizontal strokes that extend from the main strokes.Like:

Times

Garamond

Goudy

Baskerville

Palatino

Sans Serif

These do not have horizontal strokes, like:

Helvetica

Frutigar

Stone Sans

Gill Sans

Arial

Display Serifs:

These do not have strokes, but slight flares at the edges.Like:

Optima

Decorative Serifs:

These are elaborate and decorative, like:

Old English

Serif typefaces are used:

To convey a sense of formality.

Making formal letterheads.

Body texts for western readers.

Sans Serif are used:

For modernistic writing.

For technical writing.

Captions,labeling figures, marginal comments.

Web pages as they are easier to read on computers with poor resolution.

Display Serifs are used:

Emphasize elements.

Advertisement and marketing.

Special effects.

Decorative Serifs are used:

Personal Letterheads.

Title pages.

White or Blank Space:

The text and artwork is called positive space in a layout.

The white space, which surrounds text, is the negative space

What they do for your document:

Makes your document attractive.

Highlights important relationships in the text.

Is essential to make your document readable.

Pitfalls of white spaces:

Too much can destroy a sense of continuity.

Too much can appear to be wasted space and reduce the element of conciseness.

Capitals :

Capital letters begin sentences and proper names.

Capitalized words may be used as headings or emphasis.

They should be kept to the minimum.

Lists and Tables:

Use spacing to establish a separate unit.Use asterisks for easiest emphasis.Use bullets for list of short phrases.Use dashes for longer lists of sentences or paragraphs.Use boxes for checklists.Use double-column format for long lists of short items.

Using color:

Colored paper can maximize the contrast between the type image and the paper.

Color can be used to emphasize elements or distinguish one from another.

Color can make the document attractive and avoid the ‘gray look’.

Color psychology:

Reds, oranges, and yellows give a feeling of warmth

Greens; blues and violets are perceived as cool colors.

Younger audiences respond well to warmer colors while mature audiences prefer the cooler colors.

Physiological aspects pf color:

Some colors can cause negative physical reactions!

Older people and those with poor eyesight have difficulty reading black print on goldenrod.

The vivid orange-yellow sold as "goldenrod" papers, can even cause nausea!

Cultural aspects of color:

In Europe and USA white is associated with purity,youth and marriage.

In Japan and India white is a funeral color.

America brides and Indian widows, both wear white!

Different professions respond differently to color:

Red:

may excite moviegoers

it is negative to accountants

healthy to doctors and danger to engineers

Yellow

Is happiness to movie- goers

importance to financiers

jaundice to medicos

caution for engineers

Remember:

A poorly designed and layout document will reflect poorly upon the personality and abilities of the writer!