Re: Page layout resources

[cjcbrown -at- comcast -dot- net]

Any good books I read are on the basics of graphic design for print - plusÂwhat I would do in your shoes is find the flash docs of the competitors, analyze the design elements, and make yours as good as but different. 

Word is not the best tool for marcom because of funky layout issues but I bet you know that so oh well. 

Being facetious - when we have gotten Word templates from professional graphic designers who are concerned with flash appearance and do not care how it interacts with reading the words, here are the design elements: 

- Do use expensive weirdo new fonts that no one else uses, that you have to pay for, that looks flash. Do not be concerned with readability. 

- Do have 3 font choices: one for headings (san serif), one for body (serif and can be mildly serif), and one for nifty emphasis for sidebars and such. 

- Do choose 3 harmonizing colors. Use these for heading font color, background and border colors for pictures, sidebars, and footer decor. 

- Do use unbalanced or staggered 3 columns or unbalanced 2 columns (narrow, wide). Avoid like the plague one-column or equal 2-column layouts. Do not be concerned that the eye doesn't know how to follow the reading pattern on the page. 

- Be sure to have some text and graphics behind other text and graphics, off-center. This adds movement and interest and will drive you nuts selecting elements when editing. 



Connie 
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Viv Crawford" <viv_crawford -at- hotmail -dot- com> 
To: techwr-l -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com 
Sent: Tuesday, May 18, 2010 8:32:08 AM GMT -08:00 US/Canada Pacific 
Subject: Page layout resources 


Hello 

We're looking at publishing a suite of marketing and pre-sales docs that need to be as flash as anything the big multinationals we compete with can produce. 

 

We've had front covers professionally designed, but the pages with actual content on still just look like Word docs. (Word docs with fancy, coloured headings, but Word docs all the same). 

 

As Word guru in residence it's fallen to me to stop the Word docs looking like Word docs. 

 

Do you know of any resources for learning how to do page design *for printed docs*? Or any tips? Or publicly available examples I can be inspired by? I've tried Google but found only resources for designing websites. Â 

 

These docs will likely be distributed as PDF so my constraint would be that I'd have to stay within the ballpark that would allow DIY printing. 

 

Thanks in advance, 

V 
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