Design and typography

How a publication or advertisement is designed tells us a lot about its target audience and about the image which it is trying to project. For example, in Britain newspapers are generally divided into 'quality' broadsheets and 'popular' tabloids, according to their page size. The cover of the political magazine Prospect uses a cool, formal design, while teenage girls' magazines such as Mizz use much more colour and informal typography.

The key elements of page design are colour, size, type style and shape.

It's a good idea to start by looking at typography and how it is used on a magazine cover or in an advertisement. You could then look at how a newspaper front page is designed.

Typefaces

The shape of the letters in which text is typeset can make a big difference to the image which is conveyed. Typefaces fall into one of three main categories: serif, sans-serif and decorative.

Serifs are the little tabs on the corners of the letters. Sans-serif typefaces like Helvetica do not have these: they appear plainer, and can be designed in bolder versions than serif typefaces.

Generally, serif typefaces are more 'traditional' and authoritative, while sans-serif faces have a more modern or technological feel. In a broadsheet, a bold serif type like Times Bold may be used for headlines.

Type style

A tabloid front page may contain many variations in type style. The headline will usually be typeset in a bold, condensed, sans-serif type. It may be 'reversed out' - printed as white type on a black background.

Bold means that the letters are made up of thicker strokes (lines) than normal, so the typeface looks blacker. Condensed means that the letters are tall and narrow, allowing more of them to be fitted onto a line at a given size. Oblique refers to slanted type, usually sans-serif; slanted serif type is usually called Italic.

On one Daily Mirror cover, I counted over thirty variations in style and size of type. However, it didn't look a mess, because all the type on the page belonged to one of three type families: groups of typefaces that are all variations on one original typeface.

The body - the main text of the story - will usually be set in a serif type because it's easier to read at small sizes; the subheads or cross-heads between sections of the story may be in either serif or sans-serif type.

The style of type used in the masthead - the newspaper's logo - will usually tell us a lot about the image which the newspaper is trying to project. The Sun and the Mirror are sometimes called 'redtops' in the trade to distinguish them from middlebrow tabloids like the Express and Mail.

Student activities

Take a print advertisement and glue it to a larger sheet of white paper.

Label it, showing where serif and sans-serif type appear and describing why they have been used.

Type families

These variations give the designer a wide range of choices, while keeping some consistency. Here are some typefaces from the Futura family.

The grid

Almost all publications are designed on a grid. This is a background with columns on it, into which the type is placed. Headlines, photographs and the boxes containing stories can be run across several columns. The Guardian uses a consistent eight-column grid, which gives a degree of consistency and sobriety; other newspapers, particularly tabloids, vary the grid from page to page, or even have different grids for the top and bottom half of the page, or columns of different width on the same page.

Type alignment

Within a column, type can be arranged in one of several ways: justified, where both edges of the column line up; centred; ranged left (where the left edge of the column is straight and the right is irregular) or ranged right (the opposite). The body of the story is usually justified; headlines may be justified, centred or ranged left. A broadsheet may use different alignments for different sections of the paper.

Rules

Rules are what designers call straight lines: a '10pt rule' is a straight line ten points thick (a point is 1/72 of an inch). Rules are used above and below stories, or to separate columns; they can also be use as boxes around stories. A tabloid will probably use thicker and more obvious rules than a broadsheet.

News stories

Stories are organised methodically. In a tabloid, the main news story may occupy several times the space of the second story. Type size will be used to differentiate between the main headline, the strapline, and the main text of the article. Readers will be led steadily into the story.
In both tabloid and broadsheet newspapers, stories will usually fit into a square or rectangle, with any surplus being carried over to another page. A 'jump line' tells the reader which page to turn to.

Pictures

Tabloids will usually have a large picture on the front page. If there is another picture, it will often be very small: so that the main picture looks larger by comparison. Pictures will usually only be used the same size if they are being directly compared - for example, faces of opposing politicians. Pictures in tabloids will be closely cropped to eliminate any irrelevant information, and captions will be used to ensure that we get the intended meaning. In a broadsheet, more ambiguous or more loosely cropped pictures may be used.

Differentiation

Items on the page can be divided into four categories: general information about the newspaper (its name, price, the date and so on); the day's news stories with their accomanying pictures; 'puffs' or 'plugs' promoting what's in the paper, and advertisements, if any. The differences between these kinds of items are usually made very clear:

A single colour is often used for the masthead (the newspaper's logo) which will be set in a type style which does not appear elsewhere on the page.
News stories are usually typeset in black type on a white background; colour will only be used for the photographs. Stories normally occupy squares or rectangles.
'Puffs' are often set in irregular shapes or boxes with rounded corners, and the photos in them may be cut out to extend beyond the border; they may be colourful and contain a variety of text styles. They usually appear at the top of the page, adjacent to the masthead.
Advertisements will also often be in colour, but will be clearly separated from the other items on the page by a rule or box, and will be well away from the masthead.

Putting it all together

A tabloid front page uses all these techniques to make life easy for the reader. It's obvious which are the puffs and which are the news stories; which is the main news story, and in which order we should read the story. In contrast, a broadsheet will use many of the same techniques but in a less pronounced way, offering readers a choice rather than directing the reader into one story.

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