Layout Terms


Document layout ‚ the placement of text, images, and other items on a page ‚ involves many elements. To communicate effectively with your peers and service providers, it helps to understand layout terminology, much of which is rooted in printing and production history. A brief primer on layout terms follows .

Layout tools

When a graphic designer creates a layout, she uses the following tools ‚ either on paper or through software such as InDesign:

  • Grid: The basic layout design of a publication. It includes standard positions of folios, text, graphics, bylines, and headlines as shown in Figure 39-1. A layout artist modifies the grid when necessary. Grids also are called templates.


    Figure 39-1: This master-page template contains placeholders for the logos, headlines, and artwork for the first pages (whether starting on the left or right) of its reports articles. A similar master page exists for the interior reports pages.

  • Dummy: A rough sketch of the layout of a particular story.

  • Guidelines: Lines that show the standard placement of columns and margins in the grid. In most layout programs, guidelines are nonprinting lines that you can use to ensure that elements align.

  • Overlay: A piece of transparent paper or film laid over a layout board. On the overlay, the artist can indicate screens in a different color or overprinted material such as text or graphics. InDesign has the electronic equivalents of overlays: layers (Window Layers or F7).

  • Knockout: When one element cuts out the part of another element that it overlaps, a designer would say that one element knocks out the other or that one element is knocked out of the other. In either phrasing , it means the first element covers up the part of the other element under it. This differs from overlaying the other element, because in an overlay, both elements are visible (as in a superimposed image).

  • Galleys: Single columns of type that are not laid out in any sort of printed-page format. In the past, publishers used galleys to check for proper hyphenation and to proof for errors. Galleys also were sent to authors for proofreading so that corrections could be made before the text was laid out. Galleys have all but disappeared from publishing, because most people now proofread on the first draft of page layouts, instead of making the intermediate step of proofreading on galleys.

Design elements

Most publications , regardless of size and style, consist of the same basic design elements: columns, margins, frames , and so on. Take a look at what you'll be dealing with:

  • Column: A block of text.

  • Gutter : The space between columns that are placed side by side. (In newspapers and magazines, gutter space is usually 1 or 2 picas.)

  • Margin: The space between the edge of a page and the nearest standard block of text. Some designers allow text or graphics to intrude into the margin for visual effect.

  • Bleed: A graphic element or block of color that extends to the trimmed edge of the page.

  • Wrap: When text follows the contours of an obstructing element such as a graphic or other text. The column margins are altered so that the column text wraps around the intruding graphic or text instead of being overprinted by the intruding element. Depending on what the text wraps around and the capabilities of the layout program, a wrap can be rectangular, polygonal, curved , or irregular. InDesign can wrap text around any shape, including a picture's clipping path , as shown in Figure 39-2.


    Figure 39-2: InDesign lets you easily wrap text around the contours of images.

  • Folio: The page number and identifying material (such as the publication name or month) that appears at the bottom or top of every page.

  • White space: The part of the page left empty to create contrast with the text and graphics. White space provides visual relief and emphasizes the text and graphics.

  • Boxes: The frames that hold layout elements (text, graphics, and blocks of color) on a page. Using a mouse, you can delete, copy, resize, reshape, or otherwise manipulate boxes in your layout.

  • Strokes: The ruling lines around boxes that hold layout elements.

  • Template: By filling a project with empty boxes and defining style tags in advance, you can use the resulting template repeatedly to create projects that use the same boxes and styles.

Image manipulation

Page-layout programs make it easy for you to decide which parts of an image to display and at what size. Although InDesign doesn't provide the power of a dedicated illustration program such as Adobe Illustrator, you can perform some special effects as well:

  • Cropping: Selecting a part of an image for use on the page.

  • Sizing (scaling): Determining how much to reduce or enlarge the image (or part of the image). With layout programs, you often can distort an image by sizing it differently horizontally and vertically, which creates special effects such as compressing or stretching an image.

  • Reversing: Also called inverting in some programs, reversing exchanges the black and white portions of an image. This effect is similar to creating a photographic negative.

  • Special effects: Flipping (mirroring) and skewing (slanting) are other popular design effects. InDesign even lets you apply color to some types of grayscale images.




Adobe InDesign CS Bible
Adobe InDesign CS3 Bible
ISBN: 0470119381
EAN: 2147483647
Year: 2003
Pages: 344
Authors: Galen Gruman

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