Lay out Tips | Carla Ballatan | Effective Lay-outing for Newsletters

If you're thinking that plotting a plan for something as simple as a newsletter is very elementary then you're dead wrong. It takes more than just your basic ABC's to create a truly effective newsletter that can stir a response from your target readers. |
The making of an effective newsletter takes careful planning. Writing, designing and printing a piece would take time and effort since these can't be done in an instant. But your effort may all be put to waste if you do not have an appealing layout. Mind you, some readers are very particular with the layout presentation in order to get them interested in browsing on.

Newsletters may be judged by content design and layout. No matter how good your content may be, if your layout is not appealing enough for the reader, they might not look on another moment. Everyone is not born with the talent of creative, high quality layouts that are pleasing to the eye. But there are several important and basic things to know in order to improve your newsletter layout.

Keep it simple but eye-catching. Use basic but noticeable graphics. PC Software and hardware may be utilized to achieve a desired effect that will not border into hopeless complicated graphics. You can create and derive graphics from a variety of programs like Illustrator, Photoshop and others. You can get some stock illustrations from Dynamic Graphics and subscribe to two monthly services: Electronic Clipper and Designer's Club. Regarding stock photos you can get very good ones from Photodisc and Digital Stock. For better assistance in your newsletter layouts, Pagemaker may be used, while for small, fancy design projects, use QuarkXpress.

Have visually appealing texts. Whenever possible, break articles up by using subheads or by separating self-contained portions of articles into sidebars. But do not succumb to the temptation nowadays of screening back clipart behind the text. You may fancy that the users would get interested by this complex artistic display. But, this style would make for uncomfortable reading. And don't think this adds to the visual value of your newsletter…More often than not, it adds to the readers' disgust.

Use efficient sizes for your newsletter. 8.5"x11" or letter page and 11"x17" or 'tabloid' are the sizes that are most efficient to print and mail. The letter page (8.5"x11") is better for newsletters with long articles and very few graphics. A 'tabloid' (11"x17") is preferable for newsletters that contain varied article lengths and lots of nice graphics.

Newsletters should have at least four pages to give the readers something to open up and dig into. Keep in mind that a four-page tabloid newsletter needs the same amount of copy and graphics as an eight-page, letter-sized newsletter.

Have reader friendly column width or combination of widths for your newsletter. Try the two-big-one-little column format for this. Make two big columns roughly 2-3/4" wide and a thin one roughly 1-1/2" wide. Use the thin column for side heads, poking artwork into, pull quotes, or info boxes. This format would leave some white space along the edges of your newsletter – a real help for readers especially if you're into black ink printing only.

It is also worth mentioning that like in all other things we encounter, it is more preferable to stick to an easy and uncomplicated way of designing newsletters. The K.I.S.S. (Keep It Simple St*pid) principle relates to more things that you are aware of. So now that you know the basics on newsletter design, get down to business and start your newsletter make-over. |

Mistake #1: Your newsletter isn't published regularly
For obvious reasons, it's vital you keep your commitment to readers. If you tell them they'll receive your newsletter every month, make sure you live up to that promise, or your company loses credibility with readers.
Quite often, I receive customer newsletters in the mail in which the company proudly announces that this is the first issue of its new quarterly publication, and that I should be sure to watch for new issues every three months. About 5 months later, I'll receive the long-overdue second issue. After that, the newsletter invariably dies and I never receive another issue again.
The reason this happens is that editors of company newsletters are typically given this responsibility in addition to their regular job duties. For instance, a sales person who is a good writer may be put in charge of producing a customer newsletter. A human resources specialist may be assigned the task of creating an employee newsletter. If the company underestimates the time required of its employees to produce the newsletter, the publication will suffer. |
Never having served as a newsletter editor before, these employees - and their bosses - generally don't realize how much time is required to produce a quality newsletter.
As a guideline, it usually takes a non-professional writer about seven hours to write, proofread and revise the editorial content for each page of an 8.5-by-11-inch newsletter. That means a four-page newsletter requires about 28 hours of editorial time. If the editor is also handling the newsletter's design and layout, you can add even more hours to the estimate.
If the company underestimates the time required of its employees to produce the newsletter, the publication will suffer. The company may find that the production of each issue is delayed because the editor simply can't find enough time to do his or her normal, everyday job duties, as well as the additional newsletter duties. Eventually, the company realizes that the newsletter is taking the editor away from his or her regular job duties too much, and the newsletter is given the ax.
The solutions: A company should make sure that its newsletter editor has enough time freed up to produce a quality newsletter on time. If that's not possible, the company should assign other employees to help the editor with the writing, proofreading, etc. And if all employees are too busy to set aside enough time to help produce a newsletter, the company should consider hiring an outside company to produce all or parts of the newsletter.
Mistake #2: Using headlines that aren't descriptive or catchy
Which of the following employee newsletter headlines would be more likely to get you to read an article? * The company vision * New company vision emphasizes face-to-face communications with clients
You probably picked the second headline because it's more descriptive, and it's more likely to pique your interest.
Headline writing is an extremely important function for newsletter editors because the quality of each headline determines whether or not its corresponding article will be read. Your newsletter may feature the most interesting, well-written article in the world, but readers may skip over the story if it has a boring, non-descriptive headline.
How can you write a catchy, descriptive headline? For starters, make sure your headline is a complete sentence and contains a verb.
Some good and bad examples:
Bad headline: A message from our CEO
Better headline: CEO expects company to double its size within five years
Bad headline: Customer spotlight
Better headline: Client says outstanding service keeps her coming back
Bad headline: News from our regional offices
Better headline: Regional offices surpass sales goal
When writing an article's headline, also be sure to pull the most interesting news out of the story and make that part of the headline. The "better headlines" above illustrate this.
In some cases, as in the "Customer spotlight" headline above, you may want to use an incomplete sentence as a title for an article. For instance, if your newsletter regularly features a "customer spotlight" article in each issue, there's nothing wrong with specifying which article that is. However, use the words "Customer spotlight" as a smaller subhead, and then use a more-descriptive, complete sentence for the article's main headline. For instance, it might look like this:
Customer spotlight
Client says outstanding service keeps her coming back
Mistake #3: Using headlines that are all the same size
If all of a newsletter's headlines are the same size, none stands out. However, if you vary the size of your headlines, like major newspapers do, you will make your newsletter look more interesting and help readers prioritize the order in which they should read the articles (from most important to least important).
Generate greater interest in your newsletter's more-important stories by using larger headlines. Likewise, use smaller headlines for less-significant, shorter articles.
Mistake #4: Writing weak lead sentences
After a headline, the next most-important part of an article is the lead (first) sentence.
Just because readers start an article doesn't mean they'll finish it. If a lead sentence is boring and doesn't capture the attention of readers, people may not read any further.
For hard-news stories, journalists go by the rule: Write the article so the information that is most important to the reader is listed first.
For instance, say you were writing an article for your employee newsletter about your company's annual shareholders' meeting, which recently took place. Some writers would be tempted to start the story as follows:
The annual shareholders' meeting was held Feb. 10 at the Midtown Holiday Inn, in Orlando, Fla.
This is a poor lead sentence because most readers probably don't care exactly where or when the meeting was held. They want to know what important information came out of the meeting. A better lead sentence would be:
Acme CEO Katherine Watkins unveiled plans at the recent shareholders' meeting to aggressively cut the corporation's expenses next year by 15 percent.
This lead sentence gets to the most important information first and would likely grab the attention of readers more than the other lead sentence.
Mistake #5: Using too many type styles and fonts in your newsletter
Certainly, you've seen these newsletters before. They look like the layout person just bought a new package of fonts and wanted to try out all 500 new type styles in one newsletter.
Luckily, not all newsletters are that bad. But many lack a uniform, consistent look because too many type styles are used.
Instead, newsletter editors should follow the lead of major newspapers. These publications use only one type style and type size for the main text of their articles and only one or two styles of fonts for headlines and subheads.
Remember to use the same type style and size for the main text of all your articles. If your story is too long for the layout space available, don't reduce the type size so everything will fit. Instead, cut words from your story, so you can keep the body text consistent throughout all articles.
By limiting your use of different type styles and keeping your article text uniform, your newsletter will look consistent from one page to the next, and your publication will establish its own identity in the minds of readers.
Want proof of how a publication can establish its own identity? Try this: From a distance, show various people an inside page from USA Today and ask what newspaper they think the page is from. Because of the newspaper's uniform, consistent look, you'll likely find that most people will instantly identify that the page is from USA Today.
That's the same familiarity that you want readers to have with your newsletter.
Mistake #6: Laying out articles on the page so they're all one-column wide | This sample shows how you can add variety to your newsletter's layout by varying the width of your articles. |
To make your newsletter look visually interesting, make sure all your articles are not the same width. Design the articles on each page with variety in mind.
To maximize layout possibilities while keeping column widths reasonable, I recommend a three-columns-per-page design for a standard 8.5-by-11-inch newsletter. Then vary the number of columns that each article stretches across.
For instance, with a larger article, you might run it at the top of the page across all three columns (see sample at right). Below that and to the left, you may decide to place an article that stretches two-columns wide. And to the right of that, you could fill in the remaining space with a one-column story.
This multi-width layout is far more interesting to look at than a layout where all articles are the same width.
Mistake #7: Not using photos in your newsletter
Using photos in your newsletter is probably the best way to draw-in readers and make your newsletter look visually exciting. Readership experts have concluded that when people look at a page, the first thing their eyes are attracted to are photos.
Pictures also make articles more memorable for readers. It's one thing to read about a company's new sales manager, whom you've never met. But when you also see a photo of that person along with the article, it makes the story much more personal and impactful.
Photos also add credibility to a newsletter because they put the look of the publication more on par with a newspaper or magazine, both of which use photos generously.
Why don't more newsletter editors use photos in their layouts? It's mostly because coordinating the photography requires extra work and a lot of lead time to plan. However, most editors find that the extra effort pays off because the enhanced look can dramatically improve readership.
Too often, photos are nothing more than an afterthought that takes place after all the newsletter's articles have been written. Then there is not enough time to coordinate the taking and developing of the photos. Make sure to plan ahead for photos. The best way to do this is, when you are putting together an article outline for your next newsletter issue, list out a photo possibility for each major story.
For instance, if you plan to feature a story about your company's new human resources director, make a note to "arrange head and shoulders studio photo" of the employee. Or if you are doing an article about a new plant that your company is opening in Miami, make a note to "arrange to have photo taken of new plant's assembly line."
Once you have your story outline done for the upcoming issue, simply assign the photo duties along with your story assignments. No amount of beautiful stories and fresh news can salvage a poor layout. “First impression lasts.” I am convicted to say, that however good the staff writers are, if the layout artist lacks knowledge on how they would present their works as a whole, then the outcome is below satisfaction. I am also discouraging the idea that layouting the paper is none of a campus journalist’s business but that of the printing press’. That is a glaring FALLACY! If you profess that you are a campus journalist and yet ignorant even just of a little thing about laying out a school paper, you need to doubt yourself. Layout Defined Layout is the make-up or the window dressing of a page. It consists the arrangement of illustrations, texts and graphics on a page which is to be printed including the selection of font styles, sizes and colors. Laying out a page is a matter of personal taste. There are no criteria set for it. Therefore, the staff may experiment freely on page makeup until they get the pattern acceptable to them. So what can a good layout give a paper? Layout does so much good to a newspaper because it gives prominence to the news in proportion to its importance; it makes the pages appear attractive; it gives the paper a personality/individuality of its own; and it makes the different contents easy to find and read. Boxes for pictures, arrows for texts and lines for leads are among the symbols used in layouting. Conceptual Model of An Excellent Layout Factors of an Excellent Layout 1. Proportion – deals with the ratio of one part to another and of the parts to the whole. Example: Pictures must be sized properly to keep up with other shapes on the page. Square cuts are undesirable. Length of stories must be considered. A long story may ruin the proportion of the page. A jump story is better than a poorly proportioned page. 2. Unity (Harmony) - the agreement between parts. Content of every page/double page must blend as a harmonious unit. No one part of the page should overshadow another. The headlines should complement each other and the pictures should not distract the eyes too much from the type. 3. Balance – a feeling of equality in weight; suggests the gravitational equilibrium of a single unit or a space arranged with respect to an axis or a fulcrum. a. Occult balance/assymetrical balance = “felt” balance. Visual units in the other side of the axis are not identical but are placed in positions so equated to produce a felt equilibrium. 4. Emphasis – gives proper importance to the parts and to the whole. It involves the differentiation between the more important and the less important. Example: News/articles must be displayed according to importance. The news value of every story must determine to what page it should find print, its position on the page, and the style and size of its headline. 5. Contrast – is the blending of units as one. Every head and cut on a page should contrast with adjoining materials. Contrasting adjacent headlines will help emphasize the importance of each other. Boxes and pictures between heads are sometimes good makeup devices. Extraneous factors that harm an excellent layout 1. Tombstoning (placing two or more headlines on approximately the same leveling adjacent columns specially if they are of the same point and types. 2. Bad breaks – breaking stories to the top of columns. The top of every column should have a headline or a cut. 3. Separating related stories and pictures. 4. Gray areas (sea of gray). Use fillers instead. 5. Screaming headline - is one that is too big for a short or unimportant story. 6. Heavy tops. Don’t make the page top heavy. 7. Fit them all. Avoid many headlines of the same size on a page. 8. Placing small heads on rather long story. Pointers in laying out some parts of a newspaper 1. Front Page | -make the top story distinct-use the principles of contrast and balance | 2. News | -facing page using the principles of contrast and balance. | 3. Editorial/Opinions | -distinct, dignified and formal appeal-small editorial box that can be anchored in any corner-font types of titles are of masculine appearance | 4. Feature and Literary | -literary and feminine appearance-wider columns and italics font types | 5. Sport | -bolder and lively appearance-suggestive of content (action, speed and color)-bold font types | 6. Photo Essay | -well captioned-pics-story and pictures combined | Synthesis Layouting is a skill as important as any journalism skills. It can be learned better through practice. Knowledge of design principles in laying out a page goes a long way because in any pieces of written works you may engage in the future, you know how to present them creatively. The best newspaper in the world has never been laid out yet nor the best issue of The Harrow. I therefore challenge you to break the limits you imposed on yourselves and set free your creative mind. Only when the mind is free that campus press freedom is best felt, eventually, building a bridge that links to right information is not a burden at all. Thank you! | |