Six Rules of Effective Document Design
By Joe Haddad
Are the documents being designed for your organization getting tossed or getting attention? Whether you’re creating a business card, poster, brochure, advertisement, newsletter or proposal, effective design can sell your ideas and make them easier to understand.
The good news is that design basics are the same for most documents. To improve the design of all your organization’s print communications, especially those you create electronically, look for these six basic rules of effective design.
1. Communicate your purpose.
Start by defining the purpose of your design. Design for attention when your message must compete for your reader’s interest. Book covers and posters are two examples. Design for transparency when you want to make it simple for readers to quickly understand your message. Create easy-to-read text columns so readers aren’t distracted by design elements.
2. Simplify your message.
Complicated information can be simplified in many ways. One technique is to insert subheads. Subheads guide readers through long articles by breaking them into easily read two- and three-paragraph topics. You can also simplify by replacing text with tables, charts and other graphics.
3. Use selective emphasis.
Good design reveals your message’s information hierarchy. Important headlines, for example, attract more attention than secondary headlines. Pull-out quotes are a useful tool to add emphasis and reinforce ideas. A pull-out quote is a short quotation used as a graphic device to summarize surrounding material and draw attention to it. It is used to break up large amounts of body copy. As a design element, a pull-out quote can be set in large type, reversed or boxed.
4. Add contrast to add interest.
Add visual contrast to your documents by using white space, typography and size. Setting headlines in a noticeably different typeface and type size will stimulate your readers’ eyes.
Size of graphic elements can also add contrast to your pages. For example, two photographs of dramatically different size on a page are more appealing than a page with two photographs of equal size.
5. Don’t overdo the design.
Use a few colours and typefaces well. With hundreds of colours and typefaces at your disposal, it’s easy to obliterate your message. The best looking documents use minimal colours and colour effects.
6. Project the right image.
Use consistent type, colour and design elements for each document to ensure a distinct and easily identifiable “look” that distinguishes you from your competitors. Your design reinforces your message by projecting an image that creates the appropriate emotional response. The layout, typeface and colour choices create documents that project images your readers relate to on an emotional level.