Imitating and Creating Good Designs


Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, and as long as you don't cross the line into blatant copying, go ahead and flatter as many people as you can. Go to the newsstand and thumb through a bunch of magazines. (But buy just the ones you really like.) Get a couple of colleagues ‚ or just consult the other coffee lovers in line with you ‚ and look through designs together. Talk about what you like, what you don't like, and ‚ most important ‚ why you react the way you do.

You can call this flower-power consciousness-raising. Or you can call it being a copycat. The point is, it's the best way to learn good design. As with any good design ideas, the ones here are based on years of experience and, of course, honest-to-goodness pilfering of other people's good work.

Avoiding formulas

Although I say to steal ideas and follow the rules, I don't mean for you to flat-out copy other designs, making yours look exactly like someone else's. Your designs should elucidate your message ‚ not somebody else's.

Stealing from great artists

A couple more clich ƒ s to drive home the point: Good writers read good writers. (I'm sure someone has said, "Good designers study good designers," but this hasn't gotten enough buzz to become a clich ƒ yet.) Good artists imitate; great artists steal.

Avoiding design recipes

Don't confuse examples of good design with recipes. I don't pretend to be Picasso or even Haring. My designs (and my colleagues' designs) might make no sense for your documents. After all, you need to make sure the designs you produce meet several needs:

  • Your sense of aesthetics

  • The requirements of the content being presented

  • The image you or your organization wants to convey

  • The financial limitations you're working under (We'd all love to do everything in full, glorious color , but until money comes out of printers without resulting in jail terms, most people do have some concerns about costs.)

The design of the ad mockup in Figure 39-7 works well for the company because the simple black-and-white graphic communicates a 3-D stage. Plus, the company can rotate out the center text each month to sell whatever is hot that month. But if a new drugstore came to town and asked a designer to adapt the design of this ad for its grand opening, the designer would have to refuse ‚ it's just the wrong approach for a grand opening.


Figure 39-7: The design of this ad works well for its original content, but it is not likely to adapt well to another type of business.

Learning to improvise

Use design samples as starting points, and don't confuse the techniques and fundamental principles they illustrate with the implementation I happened to choose for this particular example. You could use those same techniques and fundamental principles and come up with completely different designs for your projects. Great artists may steal, but they also improvise.

Laying out ads and circulars

The elements of ads, circulars (fliers), and other such sales- and marketing-oriented materials are a critical type of publication, because they must work the first time. You may be willing to put up with a design you don't care for in a newsletter that contains information you find valuable . But an ad has the burden of needing to attract your attention, holding you long enough to deliver its message, and letting you go with a favorable impression . In the following sections, I show you three ads to identify the techniques they use to accomplish these goals. Whether it's an ad, a report cover, a prospectus , a pamphlet, or another such publication, these techniques apply.

An airline ad mockup

Figure 39-8 shows an ad mockup for a fictitious airline. Notice the following about its design:

  • The large type: This is kerned so that the spacing between each pair of characters is the same ‚ just at the point of touching.

  • The small type: This forces the eye to take a look, because of the contrast with the big type above and all the space on either side. This use of contrast is a good way to get attention. Never underestimate the power of type. It is as important as graphics in garnering attention and conveying both the substance and the nuances of the message.

  • The airline logo: This uses reverse-video and shadow effects on a fairly common font (Bauhaus). Notice the sun symbol to the logo's left: That's a symbol in the Zapf Dingbats font. The use of symbols really helps establish a logo as a logo, rather than just a bunch of letters . Also notice the use of a catchphrase (also called a tag line ) in the same font as the logo. You would do this for a catchphrase that you plan to use in several places. It becomes an extension of the logo. (The desert tableau is a color image, and in color the text is very striking against the colors; in black-and-white, it loses a little of that zing.)

  • White space: Blank areas provide a visually calm port in a storm of images and text. Be sure to provide these resting spots in all your work.


Figure 39-8: A simple ad with a simple message deserves a simple treatment to attract attention. But notice that simple does not mean simplistic ‚ every element has a character of its own.

A restaurant ad mockup

The ad mockup in Figure 39-9, for a seafood restaurant, shows a tighter interplay of text and graphics. It also shows, although not at first glance, the power of InDesign's graphics-manipulation tools. Here's what to look for:

  • The schools of fish: They're in glorious color, although you can't see that in black and white, and there are really only three fish in the ad. I used the copy function in InDesign to create the schools. And to make sure that they didn't look like clones , I used the rotate and skew tools to make each cloned fish slightly different from the others. I used only a very slight skew, less than 5 percent; the rotation accounts for most of the difference in the fishes' appearance. The lesson: Don't forget to use basic tools such as rotation and copying.

  • The descriptive text: The text describing all the sumptuous seafood options ("Atlantic cod. Alaska salmon.") is wrapped around the pictures of fish, using InDesign's B ƒ zier picture box to hold the pictures, combined with the ability to have text wrap around both sides of an image.

  • The headlines: Can you tell what this ad is selling? Why, fresh fish, of course! The repetitive use of the text reinforces the message. Placing the repeating text in different positions among the fish makes sure it doesn't look repetitive. (Predictability is a major reason that repetition is boring, so this design finds a way to repeat without being boring.)

  • The tag line: This added repetition of the words Fresh Fish reinforces the primary message. In the case of this ad, there's no large text identifying the restaurant (it's in the body text), but this tag line is one the restaurant uses a lot, so the ad can get away with the low-key treatment of the restaurant's name ‚ just as if an ad said only "Have it your way," you'd probably think of Burger King, while "Just do it!" would evoke Nike.

  • Italics: All the text here, except the list of locations at the bottom, is in italic, which is unusual. But the fluidity of italics works well with the fish theme (underwater, get it?), and by making the text large enough and the layout uncluttered, it works.

  • Going beyond the margins: The fish swim past the margins on the page, which makes the page feel less boxed-in. Overstepping margins to provide a feeling of flexibility and give the eye something unusual to notice is often a good idea.


Figure 39-9: The interplay between the text and graphics in this ad reinforces the message.

A public service announcement

Let's take a look at one more ad. This one is not a full page. It's the kind of ad you'd probably run in an in-house publication: what magazines call a PSA (short for public service announcement ). It's the type of thing you can easily put together using clip art and basic typefaces when you have a hole to fill or need to make an announcement or advertisement for your organization (see Figure 39-10). Notice the following:

  • The simple graphic: This simple graphic works well in black-and-white. Photos can be very effective in catching attention ‚ they scream "real!" The simple composition is also pleasing. You'll find many such images in clip-art libraries.

  • The message: Simple text with a simple message that ties into the image ‚ that's the ticket.

  • The headline: A loud, bold title would have competed with the photo. This one's easy to read, but it doesn't fight for attention. If you see the photo and stop, you'll see the headline, and that's all that's required. The centering makes sure that it's clear the headline goes with the text below. It also follows the centered shape of the chair .

  • The alignment: The more ways things line up, the more distracting a layout can be, so try to use only one or two alignments. A left alignment might have worked here, but then the symmetry of the chair would not have been picked up in the rest of the ad ‚ and such reuse of basic visual themes is a hallmark of pleasing design. People just get all warm and fuzzy with such continuity.

  • The justified text: The text is short, readable, and justified. Although having justified text may seem to violate the minimal-alignment rule, the fact is that centered text is rarely easy to read if there're more than a few lines of it. Having the text justified keeps the symmetry of the centered text, because the right and left margins in justified text are symmetrical.

  • The dashed lines: We all know what a dashed line means. The ad practically screams, "Cut me out!" To get a dashed box, just use one of InDesign's box tools and change the frame style to a dashed one. To reinforce the "Cut me out!" message, you could add a pair of scissors (from a symbols font or from clip art) along a top corner of the dashed box.

  • The coupon : In the box is the coupon you're hoping people will fill out. The font here is different (a condensed sans serif, compared to the text's normal serif). The font reinforces that it is a separate element. You want the readers to think of the coupon as separate, so they know that it's okay to remove it from the rest of the ad. The use of a condensed font also gives you more room for the information you want people to fill in. The underlines are right-aligned tabs using an underline leader. That's the simplest way to create fill-in-the-blank lines.


Figure 39-10: A public service announcement designed for black-and-white reproduction.

Creating newsletters

Quintessentially, publishing newsletters and magazines represents the focus of page-layout programs, even though InDesign is also great for a whole range of documents, including ads, reports , and catalogs. But when you think publishing, you think newsletters and magazines. So, let's spend a little time going over ways of making top- notch newsletters and magazines, without hiring a huge crew of designers.

Intentional evolution

Newsletters and magazines generally redesign themselves every couple years. The redesign might be subtle, or it might be extreme. But it happens. Why? Because the new art director or publisher wants to put his imprint on the publication, you might say.

Well, that's partially true, but the real reason is more basic: If you don't revisit your look every once in a while, you appear stale, and people will think you're lazy or don't care about them. People do it for their personal appearance, too. (Want proof? Take a look at a snapshot of yourself from five years ago.)

The opposite can also happen: The content changes over time but the design and "image" goals do not. When the content changes but the image goals don't, the situation is a little trickier, because you need to update the design to accommodate the new content (such as increased use of profiles, short stories, gossip and rumors, question-and-answer interviews, and so on) while still reflecting the feel of the old design. For examples of what I mean, take a look at current issues of The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Business Week, Time, or Newsweek. Then compare them with issues from five years ago. You'll find a different look and mix of content, but the same overall feel.

Understanding newsletter basics

A newsletter's main goal is to provide information. So, the focus should be on text: how to make it readable, how to call attention to it, and how to make sure the reader knows where all relevant content is. Here are some basic newsletter design issues to consider:

  • Column width: Most newsletters are two or three columns wide. A three-column format gives you more flexibility, because you can have graphics of three different sizes (one, two, and three columns wide), plus you can add sidebars and separate stories fairly easily to a page, because again there are multiple sizes to choose from. A two-column format is more straightforward, but it gives you fewer options. It's best for newsletters that are essentially sequential ‚ without multiple stories and sidebars on a page or spread.

  • Page numbers and folios: As always, make sure you add page numbers and an identifier of the publication (called a folio ). Some include a corporate symbol after the page number, to add visual interest and reinforce the identity.

  • Body text: The body text should use a very readable, straightforward font; examples include Caslon, Cheltenham, Concorde, Garamond, Janson Text, Minion, New Baskerville, and Stone Serif. Avoid Times and Times New Roman because they're so overused (consider instead variations such as Times Ten and Times Europa). A typical size for newsletters and magazines is 10 points with 13 points leading. Generally speaking, point size should range from 9 to 10 points (you can use half-point sizes), and leading from 10.5 to 13 points, with the most typical being 2 points more than the font size . Justified text is often used for an authoritative look and left-aligned text for a friendlier look.

  • Drop caps: Using a drop cap is an effective way to alert the reader to the beginning of a new story ‚ you can also use it for the beginning of the conclusion ‚ as well as to provide a visual contrast on the page. Often, drop caps are in a different typeface (sometimes picking up the headline font) and color from the body text. Generally, you should boldface the drop cap, to make it more readable. ( Otherwise , the drop cap looks wimpy, which is not what you want for such a big element.)

  • Headlines, kickers, and bylines: The headline, the kicker (the type above it, also called a slug line for reasons that have nothing to do with gardening ), and the byline are usually related. For example, the headline may reflect the body text (Minion Condensed Bold and Minion, respectively) and the kicker and byline may be from the same typeface (Helvetica Condensed Medium and Helvetica Light, respectively). The use of related typefaces provides consistency while still producing a subtle difference from the rest of the text.

    Caution ‚  

    Be careful when combining multiple fonts. If they don't work together, it can be a disaster. A rule of thumb is to restrict the number of fonts (not including variants such as boldface and small caps) to two per page. You can break this rule occasionally by using a font that has similarities to one of the other two.

  • Dingbats: A nice touch is to end a story with a dingbat (publishing speak for a symbol). The dingbat might be as simple as a single character or the corporate logo ‚ anything that reinforces the identity. Making a dingbat is easy: Just add the symbol after the last paragraph, either by putting a tab before it (and defining the tab in your text style to be flush right against the right margin, or using Shift+Tab to create a right-aligned tab) or an em space (Shift+_ z +M or Ctrl+Shift+M). Either way is fine for justified text. Pick one based on your preferences. But use only the em space if your text is not justified.

  • Sidebars: You can make a sidebar or separate, minor story distinct by putting a shaded background behind it. Make sure you have a margin between the edge of the background and the text. You can also box a sidebar, with or without the background, using frames . Or you could just put a line above and below the background. Making sidebars have a different number of columns from the main text ‚ for example, a two-column sidebar that is the width of one column of main text ‚ also helps make the sidebar distinct from the surrounding text. (Obviously, you don't want column widths that are too narrow for easy readability, so if your sidebar column widths need to be the same as the main text's column widths, so be it.)

  • Pull quotes: A pull quote is a great way to call out some interesting material in a story to attract readers' attention. Often, the style reflects the sidebars, including a shaded background or lines above and below. Any embellishments, such as dingbats, should help the text stand out while still providing continuity with the overall design. Pull quotes also help to break up long passages of text when you don't have an image to do so.

Working with magazines

Magazines are very similar to newsletters, except that they generally have color images, more graphics, a cover that has no stories on it, and a full-page (or larger) table of contents. Note that magazines usually are highly designed, so they often look very different from one another.

Creating tables of contents

Let's look first at a sample contents page from a magazine. So take the following techniques as starting points:

  • The logo: This should be distinct and readable. Typically, the name is large and clear.

  • The banner: The issue date and number is called a banner. There should usually be a generous amount of space so it isn't lost. Also, when you use a banner, make sure the text is bold; otherwise, it is can be hard to read.

  • Feature and column entries: Magazines generally have features (longer articles that appear only once), along with columns (regular, short articles that appear in each issue, usually covering a certain topic). Label the content accordingly (for example, the columns might be called Departments ).

  • Page numbers: The use of large page numbers for the features reinforces that this is a table of contents. You might even use a different font for these page numbers. For departments, the page numbers might use the same font as the story titles, or use the same font that feature page numbers do if you use a different font for them. Either way, set them off from the text with an em space or by making them two-line drop caps.

  • Photo and graphic listings: Putting a page number near any photo or graphic you have in your contents page is a good idea. If people are interested in the photo, they should be able to know where to find the associated article.

Formatting feature articles

An eye-catching design is critical to entice readers to sample a publication's contents. Most publications use a variety of tools ‚ for example, InDesign, Adobe Illustrator, Macromedia FreeHand, and Adobe Photoshop, among others ‚ to create visually rich pages. Feature articles showcase a magazine's many design approaches, because articles of that length give the designers the opportunity to use multiple techniques within the overall design framework.

Working with flexible grids

The magazine's design offers a flexible grid that allows different numbers of columns and column widths from feature to feature. By having a standard grid, the magazine's design director can be assured that the entire package will be cohesive. By allowing individual designers options within that structure, appropriate creative flexibility is available to keep the reader engaged. Every standard element ‚ body text, sidebars, screen images, diagrams, tables, and captions ‚ must take up an integral number of columns, but the number per element is up to the designer.

You can also mix grids on a page. For example, the main text might follow a two-column grid. But the sidebar on the left- facing page might span all the columns in the grid, allowing for wider columns. Staying within the geometry of the grid, the designer can easily connect sidebars and graphics to related text while creating enough visual distinction. That's the beauty of having multiple grids to use in a layout.

Working with gatefolds

Every once in a while, you see a magazine that has an article with a foldout page. Called a gatefold, this kind of page requires some special work in your layout. To create a gatefold, you just add a page to the right of an existing right-hand page, making sure to add an extra page to the left of the next spread's existing left-hand page. (Chapter 5 covers how to use the Pages pane to create gatefolds.) That's the easy part. But there are three possible hazards:

  • Although it appears on-screen as if the three pages are one long sheet of paper, in the actual magazine the far left page is a separate sheet of paper, while the two right pages are indeed one sheet of paper (folded where the line numbers are).

    Tip ‚  

    Be sure to leave sufficient space between the two sheets so text and images don't get swallowed up in the gutter .

  • The folded-over page in a gatefold needs to be a bit narrower than the other pages. That's so when it's folded, it doesn't actually get so far into the gutter that it's bound shut into the magazine. Typically, keep an extra pica ( 1 / 6 ") on the outside edge of a gatefold's folded page.

  • A gatefold must be at the beginning or end of a form (the sequence of pages printed and bound at a time on a printing press). That's because the extra-wide sheet must be the first or last sheet in the stack. (Magazines are composed of multiple forms, usually of 8, 16, 24, or 32 pages in length.)

    Note ‚  

    Check with your printer before using a gatefold. Also tell your service bureau you're outputting a gatefold, so the staff can ensure that the extra width doesn't inadvertently get cut off during output to film.

Doing other cool stuff

By combining various techniques, you can create some cool-looking stuff, for any of a variety of documents. Figure 39-11 shows some examples, which are described as follows:

  • Embossed text: You can create various embossed-text effects by duplicating a text frame and making one slightly overlap the other. Then make the one on top white (or the paper color).

  • Textual graphics: By duplicating a text frame several times and rotating each copy at a different angle, then applying different shades of gray to each, you can create a textual graphic. Here, each subsequent copy (moving from the bottom to the top of the arc) is rotated 10 degrees more than the previous and is 10 percent darker .

  • Stretched text: Each letter in the word Stretch is set 10 percent wider than the previous letter, which gives it the effect of being stretched.

  • Spaced-out text: By increasing the space between letters, you can space out text ‚ an effect lots of designers use. You could put spaces (whether regular spaces, en spaces, or em spaces) between the letters, but by using the intercharacter spacing controls (tracking), you ensure that the text is treated as one word and you make it easy to change your spacing settings. (It's easier to adjust the tracking than, say, to replace em spaces with en spaces between every character.)

  • Combining skew and shadow: By combining the skew feature with the shadow feature for text, you can alter how a font looks to create logos. Here, I went a step further and mirrored the text block and changed its color to a shade of gray (by defining a tint of 39 percent black).

  • Tinting gray-scale images: For gray-scale images, you can apply a color or tint to make them ghostly or subtle. It's a great way to mute a photo enough so that you can place text over it.

  • Cameo effects: By using an oval or B ƒ zier frame (with a very thick frame), you can create a cameo effect. It's a way to create a different type of shape or frame.

  • Altered opening-page text: In some publications, the text on the opening page has a radically different style from the rest of the pages. Often, there is little text on the opening page, because the title and graphics usually take up much of the space. The text that's on the page is also treated graphically. One method is to have no paragraph breaks but to use a symbol instead to indicate paragraph breaks.

  • Embedded graphics: Although drop caps are popular, you can also use an embedded graphic to accomplish the same purpose, or if you want the graphic to be dropped down into the text, you can place the graphic at the appropriate location and turn text wrap on.

  • Copying and flipping graphics: By making a copy of the "Skew!" graphic and flipping it vertically, I made the text feel even more like a graphic.


Figure 39-11: Various special effects (from top to bottom, left to right).

Looking at common threads

Creative design means taking some risks, trying out new ideas. Because you can easily use InDesign to try out ideas ‚ and to abandon those that just don't cut it ‚ you should set aside some time in every project to play around with your design. Save a copy of your original, of course, and then see if you can discover some new approach that adds that special edge. While you're doing that, keep the following principles in mind:

  • Look intentional. A former boss gave me some advice I'll never forget: Make sure you look intentional. Everything in your design should look like you wanted it to be there. If something looks odd, it should look as it were meant to look odd. If it looks intentional ‚ whether or not it actually was! ‚ the reader will think you put a lot of care and attention into your work, which enhances your credibility.

  • Have enough white space. People need a visual resting place as they thumb through a publication. Give it to them. If you don't, they'll start to fall asleep, and they'll stop reading. If it's too gray (where everything looks like everything else) or too busy (where there are so many things to look at that readers don't know where to start), people will stop making the effort.

  • Make the text readable. Remember that the basic point of publishing is to convey information. So don't make it difficult for the reader to get the information you're providing. Make sure the text is readable. Captions and headlines should be both informative and interesting. Make sure people can tell where a story continues and which stories are related to each other.

  • Use type creatively. Fonts are neat and fun. Invest in several fonts, and use them creatively by applying effects such as small caps, colors, banner backgrounds, rotation, skewing, and mixed sizes (but not all at once, of course).

  • Use graphics effectively. They should be fairly large ‚ lots of small images are hard to look at ‚ and should complement the rest of the layout.

  • Use visual themes. Use a core set of fonts. If you use lines in one place, they may be effective in another. If you use boxes to separate some elements, don't use colored backgrounds to separate others. Instead, pick one approach and stick with it. There can be variances within the approaches, but by picking up variations of the same core approach, you keep your reader from getting distracted by visual chaos ‚ yet you can still be creative.

  • Use color judiciously. Color is expensive and can overwhelm the content. Used well, grays can provide as much visual interest as color. In fact, in something laden with color, a gray image will stand out as distinct and gain more attention than the surrounding color images.




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

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