1. Making your print look terrific
Tips on design
Jonna Jones, Senior Communications Specialist, SMECO

2. Key elements in layout White space is your friend.
Use grids to provide balance and a useful framework for design.
Avoid trapped copy.
Make sure the overall look is consistent.
Remember the K.I.S.S. principle… Keep It Simple, Stupid.
Key elements in layout

3. What is white space? Good Bad Allow the design to breathe
Create empty space
Ensure the information is easy to read and understand
Bad

4. Grids are good Sample of a design over a five-column grid.
Gutter: space between columns. One or two picas is standard for the space between columns.
Column Inch: one column inch is one inch of vertical space by one column wide.
Jump: when items flow from one column to the next.
Sample of a design over a five-column grid.

5. Use color to communicate
Creates the mood
Say no to personal preferences
Don’t lose function or form
Use color to communicate

6. Use color to communicate
Utilize the color wheel to create pleasing color palettes

7. Use color to communicate
Warm Colors: red, orange, and yellow. Often associated with passion, energy, impulsiveness, happiness, coziness, and comfort. They draw attention and have the advantage of being inviting and harmonious.
Red: emotionally intense. Associations: Energy, war, danger, strength, power, determination, action, confidence, courage, vitality, passion, desire, and love. It can enhance metabolism, increase respiration, and raise blood pressure. Red has a high visibility and advances to the foreground. It is often used for buttons in order to get people to take impulsive action.
Yellow: attracts attention, distracting when overused.
Associations: Joy, happiness, wisdom, and intellectual energy.
It stimulates mental activity and generates muscle energy. Yellow produces a warming effect, arouses cheerfulness and is often used to evoke pleasant feelings. Shades of yellow can become dingy, lessening the pleasing effect.
Orange: combines the energy of red with the happiness of yellow. It’s not as aggressive as red and calls to mind healthy food (citrus). Associations: Joy, sunshine, the tropics, enthusiasm, happiness, fascination, creativity, determination, attraction, success, encouragement, stimulation, and strength. It can increase appetite and evokes thoughts of fall and harvest.
Use color to communicate

8. Use color to communicate
Cool Colors: green, blue, and violet. Cool colors are more often associated with calm, trust, and professionalism. The are also associated with sadness and melancholy. The have the advantage of being professional and harmonious, but can also turn people off by the coolness they radiate.
Green: color of nature. Associations: healing, stability, endurance, harmony, safety. life, and well being It symbolizes growth, hope, freshness, and fertility. It can sometimes signify a lack of experience and is often used to indicate the safety of drugs and medical products in advertising.
Blue: color of the sky and the sea. Associations: trust, loyalty, wisdom, intelligence, expertise, confidence, stability and depth It has the opposite effect of red and slows metabolism, breathing, and heart rate. It’s seen as a masculine color. It creates a calming effect, suppresses appetite and has been considered to be beneficial to both body and mind. Blue is often used for corporate sites given the previously mentioned associations.
Purple: combines the stability of blue and the energy of red. Associations: wisdom, dignity, independence, creativity, mystery, and magic It conveys wealth and extravagance and is seen as the color or royalty. It symbolizes power, nobility, luxury, and ambition. Light purple is seen as feminine and purple is a popular color with children. Purple occurs less frequently in nature and some may consider it artificial.
Use color to communicate

9. Use color to communicate
White: is associated with light, goodness, innocence, purity, virginity. It usually has positive connotations and is seen as clean and safe.
Black: is associated with power, elegance, formality, death, evil, and mystery. It denotes strength and authority, is seen as formal and elegant, and brings forth feelings of fear and the unknown.
Gray: is the color of sorrow, detachment, and isolation. It connotes responsibility and conservative practicality. It’s a neutral color and creates a non-invasive feeling. It’s associated with security, maturity, and dependability. It can be used to reduce the intense energy of another color and to emphasize a willingness to comply. Some people who prefer gray many be seen as the lone wolf type or narrow-minded.
Brown: is the color of the earth and tends to blend into the background. It’s associated with material things, order, and convention. It’s connection to the earth gives it stability. Brown can convey a solid and wholesome feeling.
Use color to communicate

10. Appropriate font use and styling
Limit your fonts
Do not use display fonts as text fonts.
Avoid Comic Sans and Papyrus
Don't change the font in mid- sentence unless you have a very good reason
Appropriate font use and styling

11. Appropriate font use and styling

12. Save the widows and orphans
They look out of place and affect readability. If you have a subhead, make sure to have two to three lines of text following it.
Save the widows and orphans

13. Use quality art High resolution Low resolution High resolution
Appropriate format
Make sure you have permission
High resolution
Low resolution

14. Use quality art
Rule of thirds

15. Common punctuation and style mistakes to avoid
Dates: always use Arabic numbers without th, st, nd
November 10, 2011 not November 10th, 2011.
Use the appropriate dashes:
Em dash — (alt-0151): an em dash is used to show a break in thought or a shift of tone.
En dash – (alt-0150): the en dash means “through.” A common use is to indicate inclusive dates and numbers: July 9–August 17; pp. 37–59.
Don’t start a sentence or headline with a numeral, spell out numbers under 10.
Common punctuation and style mistakes to avoid

16. References Pantone universe: www.pantoneuniverse.com/
COLOURlovers:
Associate Press Stylebook
References

17. Sample one: original
Based on the information provided here, what do you think works and doesn’t work?

18. Sample two: original
Based on the information provided here, what do you think works and doesn’t work?

19. Sample two: revised

20. Sample three: original
Based on the information provided here, what do you think works and doesn’t work?

21. Sample three: revised

22. Sample four: original Sample four: original
Based on the information provided here, what do you think works and doesn’t work?
Based on the information provided here, what do you think works and doesn’t work?

23. Sample four: revised