print design
Thoughts on design
We apply our theories on great graphic design to both print and web layouts.
Good content
Give them what they want. Identify the main reason users would want to look at your material and tell them the most important stuff first. Show them the pictures. Deliver the facts.
At the same time, you should hold back on the less important info, or diminish its appearance. If it’s not really important, leave it out. Don’t make people read stuff they will find out once they contact you or take the action that your material is designed to initiate.
Good layout
Good design communicates a message quickly. It comes through at a glance. The style, the font, the colour, and the professionalism all send clues to the viewer about why they might want to read on.
Less is more: white space is your friend. If you try to emphasize everything, you will emphasize nothing. Clutter will drive people away.
Your information must be organized, easy to read and delivered in clean and simple format.
Keep it simple
Be as brief as you can. Readers will stick around if they can absorb your information quickly through images, headings and short chunks of related text. Use headlines and bold formatting to break up your content so readers can see zone in to the information that’s important to them. Give their eyes a break. You will have more visual impact if you can communicate your message with short headings and phrases and a few large interesting graphics than pages and pages filled up with text and tiny pictures.
Good usability
Figure out the hierarchy of your information and decide what is of PRIMARY, SECONDARY and TERTIARY importance. Readers want to scan your page like a map and know intuitively what it’s about. if it interests them, they will pull up a chair and read more.
Good usability is about common sense. But it’s not always obvious. It requires an understanding of how people see, think and act. Good usability is invisible. Bad usability is glaring and frustrating.
Focus on your objective
Don’t ask a piece of printed material to do too much. Focus on the action you want viewers to take when they see your material. Do you want them to register or sign up for something? Purchase something? Contact you? Donate? Send you something? Know what it is you are hoping to achieve and we will help you find a way to make it happen.
A good event poster will stir people to go buy a ticket. A good brochure will stir people to contact the organization, make the donation, register for the event, etc.
