Layout projects

How to make your designs exciting and professional

Before you get started on designing something yourself, determine whether you have the software and the skills to do justice to your project. It is a shame to spend thousands of dollars on printing when you have not been willing to invest a hundred dollars or more in the design. For most of the projects listed on this page, it is best to have professional design software such as Adobe Photoshop (or Corel Photo Paint) and Adobe InDesign (or Quark or in a pinch, Microsoft Publisher). If you need to modify vector images, you will also need a program like Adobe Illustrator or Corel Draw. It is possible to create certain projects in Microsoft Word, including basic booklets, manuals, signs and newsletters for home or office printing, but for anything you are having professionally printed, it pays to have the right software for the project.

DVD cover layout samplesDVDs slicks/jackets and disk art

Like book covers, DVD covers generally look best when you start with a background image or colour that stretches from front to back, including the spine. The size of the typical DVD cover (slick/jacket) is 27.43 x 18.42 cm or 3240 x 2175 pixels (170 spine) pixels at 300 dpi. It is important to remember, however, that the printer will require about 5mm bleed all round, so if you are creating a graphic for a DVD slick background that goes all the way to the edges, you need to create an extra 5mm all around. The dimensions would therefore be 28.43 x 19.42 cm or 3358 x 2293 pixels. If you want to check this for yourself, take the cover out of a DVD and measure it with a ruler. Then add 10mm to the height and width to get your design size including bleed. DVD covers can include the following:

On the front cover

  • Program title
  • Volume or version number, if applicable
  • Marketing copy (attention grabber)

On the spine

  • Publisher icon
  • Program title
  • DVD logo (nb. producers of DVDs are supposed to pay for the right to display this logo)

On the back cover

  • More marketing copy
  • Blurb
  • Program imagery
  • Quotes from reviewers/supporters
  • Publisher icon, web address, phone number
  • DVD logo
  • Video type (eg. PAL or NTSC)
  • Aspect ratio (eg. Widescreen or 4:3)
  • Audio (eg. English, Dolby Digital Stereo)
  • DVD type (eg. DVD-5 single layer format)
  • Approximate running time in minutes
  • Copyright and other legal notices (eg. © Copyright 2007. The footage and soundtrack on the disk are for home use only. Any unauthorised copying, hiring, lending, public performance including radio or TV is strictlyl prohibited.)

Disk art is what you see on the DVD itself and it can be created by home users who have purchased a stomper that comes with software to help you line up the design in your printer. Professional graphic designers work with InDesign templates (often supplied by the printer). It is a good idea to match the design of your disk art to that of the DVD cover, but if possible keep it simple and readable. Disk art generally includes the following:

DVD menu and program graphics (images for your video)

Video safe zone in graphic design for DVDsWhether you are creating a home video or something intended for professional pressing, these are some tips that will make your program graphics work better for the majority of viewers. Different people have different sized televisions so it is important to leave a generous gap around the outside of any still images embedded in your program.

If your project is PAL and 4:3 aspect, then the graphics you can create for it to fill the whole screen should be 720 x 576 pixels at 72 dpi and RGB. You should use a safe zone of 577 x 461 pixels (no text outside the safe zone). Visibility problems with images are a bit less noticeable so the image safe zone is 650 x 519 pixels (pink in the graphic right). So you would have your images going all the way to the blue edge, for example, but nothing important like heads or eyeballs outside the pink zone. This not only looks better on a normal 4:3 TV, but also accounts for those TVs that might chop small sections of the video off.

Photoshop has inbuilt templates for film and TV that include guidelines for the safe zones, so if you are planning to make a lot of images for a video project, it is advisable to use the best software.

Book layout and book cover design

There are endless options for book design, but if you think carefully about your project, you will be able to narrow down the options quite easily. Ask the following questions:

Book covers

Writers often don’t realise how much effort goes into some of the book covers you find in book stores. Asking them for ideas is fine, but promising to be able to implement them within the time limit and budget is something else. Designing a cover for a self-publishing author or a vanity press, for example, may mean there are not enough funds to pay for custom-made artwork and photography. In that case, the options that remain are free stock imagery and cheap stock imagery. When these limitations exist, it is best to start the book design process by looking for suitable images (no point sketching thumbnails if you aren’t likely to have access to the kinds of images your imagination will come up with).

The first thing to realise when it comes to book cover design is that you will probably need to send a single PDF to the printer that includes the back, spine and front. In the image below, you can see that the length (or width) of the book cover design includes the width of the back cover, spine and front cover. To determine the spine, the interior layout must already be completed and the paper type chosen. Once this is done, it should be possible to find out from the printer how wide the spine of the cover needs to be.

The grey area in the image below represents the bleed, that section of the cover design that will not be seen in the final job, but needs to be there as a sort of safety zone or buffer. It is way out of scale in the below (as it is usually only about 5mm), but it should give you a rough idea.

Book cover design file preview

Book cover example - epic fantasy novelThe artwork for my epic fantasy novel Talon cost $600.00, but having seen the artist’s other works on Elfwood, I felt it was a worthwhile investment to get the nicest looking cover possible. It is common for epic fantasy to have artwork on the cover, but not so common to find a digital painting like this one (most books tend to have more traditional artforms). Because I have such a strong, simple title, I chose to make it the most eye-catching feature on the cover and I used a font that reflects the animal and warrior nature of the story. My name is at the bottom of the page innocuously in white. This book is not published yet, so I created the 3D book look in Photoshop.

Here is a checklist of items to include on the typical fiction book cover:

What goes on the front cover of a book?

  • Title (and sometimes a sub-title or teaser)
  • Volume number and name of series
  • Author
  • Marketing text such as a quote from a review or a statement about a significant award won by the author

What goes on the spine of a book?

  • Title
  • Sometimes the volume number, but not usually the name of series
  • Author
  • Publisher’s logo

What goes on the back cover of a book?

  • Sometimes the title
  • Sometimes the volume number and the name of series
  • Not usually the author
  • Blurb
  • Marketing text, summary text and review quotes
  • Web address of publisher and/or author
  • ISBN barcode
  • Book genre for ease of library classification (eg. FICTION)
  • RRP
  • Image credits (sometimes also the designer’s website is listed)
  • Publisher’s logo

How do you get an ISBN and barcode for a book?

In Australia, you need to register as a publisher and purchase an ISBN (or block of ISBNs) from Thorpe-Bowker. Once you have this number, you can create a barcode image using free software online, such as this one: http://www.terryburton.co.uk/barcodewriter/generator/.

Book layout (interior design)

It is important to experiment with a number of different options and get the basic design choices approved by the publisher and/or client before going ahead with the entire book. The following elements need to be chosen:

  • Justification (usually full justified so the text lines up on the left and the right)
  • Font of body text (usually Times New Roman or some other highly readable serif font)
  • Leading and tracking of body text (usually left on Auto in InDesign)
  • Font of chapter headings
  • Hyphenation?
  • Indentation rules (such as never indenting the first line of a chapter, but always indenting the first line of every other paragraph)
  • Formatting of internal dialogue and special communication, such as telepathy or supernatural beings
  • M dashes or N dashes for pauses or breaks (in my opinion M dashes are more correct)
  • Header text (usually the book title on the left pages and the author on the right pages
  • Footer text (usually the page numbers, centred)
  • Single quotation marks or double quotes for dialogue? Usually single quotes for speech and doubles for scare quotes.
  • Italics for titles of creative works, foreign words and emphasis?
  • Section dividers (such as *     *     * )?

Non-fiction books do not have dialogue, but may have quotes, which will be typeset inline or as indented block paragraphs. Become familiar with the referencing style preferred by the publisher or author before starting work on the layout. The most common citation styles are APA style, MLA style, The Chicago Manual of Style, Bluebook, ALWD Citation Manual, ASA style, Harvard referencing, and Vancouver system.

Non fiction book layout will also have other elements to be considered such as:

  • Multiple levels of headings
  • Image layout options (such as containing all images inside boxes with rounded corners, right align, having a page to themselves, formatting and layout of captions, credits and figure numbers)
  • Chapter intro text
  • Formatting and sizes of symbols such as ™, BC and ® (eg. sometimes it looks better to just insert the symbol that comes with the font you're using and other times you may need to adjust its size manually, ensuring you make them all the same).
  • Formatting of citations and whether they are footnotes or endnotes (usually determined by the citation style)
  • Formatting of quotes (usually indent the entire paragraph, but not the first line. If there is a second paragraph to the quote, then you indent the first line of subsequent paragraphs. This avoids an ugly jagged look while still achieving the aim which is to make it immediately obvious to the reader where the text is changing from author to citation etc.).
  • How to handle widows and orphans (how many lines are allowed to be by themselves at the end of top of a page? Usually two or three. InDesign can handle this automatically for you in the paragraph toolbox drop-down menu (look for Keep Options).
  • Typesetting of bulleted lists (usually indent them one step further than whatever is above).
  • Box backgrounds to make certain sections of text stand-out.

Newsletters

Newsletter layout sampleThere are all different sized newsletters, but in Australia, the most common paper types are A4 or A5. It is more feasible to use columns in an A4 newsletter, which means you will fit more text, but some arguments in favour of A5 newsletters are they are smaller in the hand and therefore easier to read. Some newsletters are designed for printing whereas others are merely converted to PDF and uploaded onto a website. Some newsletters are distributed both electronically and in hard copy. The way you set up the design file for your newsletter depends greatly on how it will be distributed. For example, if it is only for screen viewing, then you can be fairly lazy with graphics (allowing RGB 72 dpi originals) and you don't have to worry about bleeds. You simply set your paper size and design it how you want it to appear on screen.

If you are designing a newsletter for printing, however, you need to consider image quality, which is more noticeable in print than on screen, bleeds and other printer specifications. Taking care with copyright is equally important for websites as it is for print, however, in grey areas, it is less risky for electronic publications because they can easily be changed. Once something has gone to print, however, it cannot be taken back except via a retraction, which could be embarrassing and expensive.

A checklist for newsletter inclusions

  • Catchy title
  • Company or organisation the newsletter represents
  • Volume and/or issue number, month and year
  • Page numbers
  • Story enders (specially designed ender bar or square)
  • Graphics, to make it more attractive for readers
  • Spiel about the company or organisation (for new readers)
  • Website address and contact details

Newsletters by new or amateur designers often feature an overcrowding of boxes to separate articles or they fill an A4 page from left to right without the use of columns. It is more subtle to divide articles with a thin line (vertical and/or horizontal) and to include only one ‘box’ on each page. If your newsletter is in full colour, try not to go overboard with lots of different colours and, if possible, refrain from using bright colours like hot pink, red and blue. If your text is dark (advisable), it is easiest to read this on a pale background with as little texture as possible. Greyscale newsletter designers have to be even more careful with readability of text and quality of images, especially if the printing is being done on a photocopier rather than at a professional press.

How long does it take to create a newsletter?

Depending on the complexity of the subject and brand, a 6-page A4 newsletter template can be created in a less than a day. Once the template is designed, it is a simple matter for the designer to plug in the text and graphics for each issue. Newsletter layout can become time-consuming when there is lots of editorial backwards and forwards after the text has been sent to the designer. This is because text in its raw form (eg. a Word document) has not had many design decisions made about it. A newsletter designer must make sure headings, images, captions, quotes and other elements are in a good place. Changes to the text can cause these to move, causing new design decisions and changes to have to be made. Even small changes can have a knock-on effect and disrupt an existing layout significantly, so it is a good idea to have your text fully edited before starting on the design.

Sample of an A4 flyerBrochures and flyers (DL, A5, A4—whatever size you need)

The cheapest flyers are single-sided A5 because printers can produce many of them on a roll and cut them out in one easy step. There is no folding, binding or extra trimming required. Probably the most common brochure is the three-panel, two-fold DL (also called a “trifold” by people who cannot count). It is a good idea to work with a template from your printer for these because the panels are not equal in width. The inside panel is slightly narrower than the others so that the brochure doesn’t buckle. The width of the first panel (the panel that folds to the inside) should be approximately 100 mm, the middle panel 102 mm and the right panel 102 mm.

Download a free InDesign CS3 trifold brochure template here. To preview a brochure layout sample as a PDF, click here. Please refer to GreensladeCreations.com somewhere in your brochure if possible.

 

Business cards

The easiest mistake to make with business cards is to try to cram too much information onto them. Some of the most effective cards simply contain a person’s name, a company name, a phone number, email address and website. The text can be small, but I recommend going no smaller than 8 pt. The most common dimensions for an Australian business card are 90 55 mm, but if you have elements going all the way to the edges, the cards will need to be designed with bleed to suit your printer (usually 5 mm) which makes the dimensions 100 x 65 mm.

For full details, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Business_card

 

Catalogue layoutCatalogues

Catalogues come in many shapes and sizes, with varying paper quality and design styles. It is important to have a thorough checking procedure after layout because of the huge volume of information in a catalogue. Also bear in mind that every little thing on the page has to be set-up and because of the volume of items on any given page, the potential for layout problems is higher than an item like a brochure or newsletter. For example, you've got the prices, sku numbers, product descriptions, images, reference numbers, background images and shapes, page numbers and other footer information. Wherever possible, items should be in templates and library files in InDesign to enhance accuracy and consistency.

Click the catalogue image on the right to view four sample layout pages from a catalogue I designed.

 

Manuals, reports and procedural documents

Graphic design for manuals and procedural documents is all about styles. Having logical numbering and consistent text sizes, especially in headings, has an impact on the meaning that can be derived from the document. They make it easier to follow and simpler to find relevant segments when browsing. For electronic viewing, manuals can be set up with hotlinks inside the document. This can be done from Word and/or InDesign so that when you click the link, it jumps to that page of the document.

 

Magazine layout sampleMagazine layout

Magazine layout is an acquired skill and an artform. There is no right way of doing a magazine layout, however you can easily tell a professionally designed magazine apart from one that lacks art direction and is hastily cobbled together by an amateur. Signs of amateur magazine layout are lack of consistency (eg. lots of different fonts used throughout the magazine), overuse of different colours, boring straight headlines, poor quality images (eg. ones with pixellation), boxy articles and a lack of complex text wrapping.

 

PowerPoint presentations

When designing a PowerPoint presentation, you need to think about how it is going to be used. If it is intended for a live event where it will be projected onto a wall or screen with a data projector, then it is a good idea not to have any text below 18 pt (and preferably stick to 24 pt). Otherwise, some people in your audience may not be able to read it. If it is for online use, then it may be OK to go smaller than 18 pt, especially if recipients will be opening the show up at their full screen size. If you are deploying your PowerPoint show in an online webinar platform such as Adobe Connect Pro, it will not fill the entire screen, so you may want to stick to the 18 pt rule.

When designing PowerPoint shows to be sent to other people, ensure you send along with them any fonts, sounds, music files or video files that go with it as these are not embedded in the PowerPoint file itself. It is possible to embed the fonts by going into the Tools menu, then Options when saving. If you prefer to design PowerPoint show graphics in photo manipulation software like Adobe Photoshop, then it will be difficult and time-consuming to make changes later so just bear this in mind. If, on the other hand, you don't want your recipients to be able to change it you can do it this way, or you can Save As a PPS (PowerPoint Show) instead of a PPT (the working, editable PowerPoint format).

 

Scripts (television, film and plays)

The script format for television and movies is specially designed so that each page takes approximately one minute of screen time.

 

Click here to read some of my graphic design tips, including text, fonts, typesetting, colours, photographs and vector images.

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Please email
Amanda@GreensladeCreations.com
or call 0403 124 533
to discuss your needs.

 

For details of all of Amanda’s services, including how she can train your staff to maintain your website, email newsletter, image collection and more, please download this Greenslade Creations brochure.

 

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