The document provides guidance on desktop publishing and design best practices. It discusses pre-planning questions like objectives, audience, and deadlines. It covers design elements like layout, balance, headings, images and calls to action. It also addresses technical specifications around files, resolution, raster vs vector images, and finding quality stock photos while ensuring proper licensing. The overall document aims to help users effectively plan, design and produce high-quality printed materials and publications.

1. Pre-Planning
for Results

2. Desktop Publishing Defined
• The production of
camera-ready art
via computer

3. Purposeful Design
What is your
objective?
Visualize your
readers?
What do they
like?
What’s the
most
important
element?
What do you
want them to
see first?
Second?
What action
do you want
them to take?
What
specifications
must you
meet?

5. Basic Design and Post Design Planning Questions
What is your
purpose?
Who is your
audience?
How will your
piece look?
How will readers
use your piece?
How will you
reach your
audience?
Where else might
you use your
content?
When do you
need the job
delivered?
How many pieces
do you need?
How much should
you spend?
How will your
piece reach your
printer?
What help do you
need?
What services do
you want from
your printer?

6. You can have two …
Good
CheapQuick

7. What is your purpose?
Entertain
Inform
Sell Inspire

8. Don’t waste a professional’s
time and your money because
you have no idea what you want

9. Who is your audience?
Keep it consistent with the
best standards of your clients,
customers or members have
come to expect from similar
organizations

10. How will your piece look?
Dignified or
informal
Conservative
or
speculative
Products or
services

11. Writing quality
Pay equal
attention to the
quality of the
written message
Poor writing can
ruin a printed
piece as easily as
poor design
Every sentence
you cut saves on
paper and
printing

12. There is a fine line between
being specific enough to get
what you want and general enough to
stimulate creativity

13. How will readers use your piece?
Read quickly?
•Brochure
•Newsletters
Absorb over time?
•Books
Life expectancy?
•Menus?
•Instruction Manuals?
•Catalogs with pricing?
Mailing?
•Format
•Size
•Paper
•Printing
•Folding
•Packing

14. How will you reach your audience?
Envelopes?
Spiral
binding?
Wrapping? Boxes?
Shipping?

15. Where else might you use your content?
Website
“Any device
in, any
device out”
CD TV Ad

16. When you need it delivered?
First in, first
out
Set deadlines
and stick to
them
Plan
backward
from the
deadline

17. Cutting production time 1-3
•use common ink, paper, formatsStandardize
•Files and specs right the first timeAvoid alterations
•PDFs reduce pre-pressExploit technology
•Keep it under one roofReduce buyouts
•give up perfection, get the job doneLower quality
•Reduce the number of people who review copy and proofsExpedite approvals
•Use correct terms and symbolsCommunicate clearly
•Eliminate unnecessary turn-around timeCut dead time
•Pick up the job todaySpeed delivery
•Find designers and printers who can accommodate rush workShop for speed
•If you want it fast, you’ll pay for itPay for speed

18. Pricing is determined by how many
• 10% over or under
• Quantity up, price per piece goes down

19. What printing quality do you need?
• One or two colors, toner not ink
• Newsletters, real estate flyersBasic
• Standard materials, toner or ink, colors saturated
• Hardcover books, Time NewsweekGood
• High Grade materials, ink, very sharp
• National Geographic, upscale clothing catalogsPremium
• Best materials and machines, First class, photo quality
• Museum-grade art books, resortsShowcase
• Quality highly variable
• Acceptable for internal consumption
DIY

20. How much should you spend?
Fixed costs
Design and prepress
Price of paper
Press time
Finishing
Few copies, pay attention to fixed costs
Variable
Quantity
More copies, pay attention to variable
costs

21. Accountability for the
accuracy of the final copy
lies with you

22. What help do you need?
Writers
Photographers
Illustrators Designers
Agencies
Overhead
Stock
photography
Fonts
Print brokers

23. What services do you need?
Price?
Flawless
production?
What
aspects are
important?
Finishing?
Shipping?

24. What is "good“ when it comes to design?
• It’s a matter of opinion.
• What is “good” to one person, may not be
“good” to another.
• It depends on your specific objective and
your target audience

25. How are you going to draw them in?
• Time Available: 1-7 Seconds
about 4 words per second
• What’s in it for me?
• Headlines & Titles
– Maximum 28 words
– 9-5 is the best and
should be twice the size
of the subheads

26. Photographs
• Photographs
– Inspire curiosity and involvement
– Help readers imagine themselves
there
– Vary size, shape alignment,
layering, isolation

27. Photography Concerns
• Captions
– People will read captions, no
matter how long, before
reading body text

28. Does the design convince the reader to invest more
time? Confirmation
• Time Available: Up to 90 seconds
• Was I right?
• Looking for a reason NOT to read.

29. Give them what they want to read
• Short Body Text
– Increase comprehension
– Every 2-3 Paragraphs
• Use Sub-heads, sidebars, pull
quotes, summaries, teasers
• Unfinished statements will get 30-
60% more people to keep reading

30. Proportion - Grids

31. Layout - Headlines

32. Layout “Z” Path Formatting

33. Layout Elements

34. Rule of Thirds
The eye is drawn to the
intersections of an image when
divided into thirds

35. Page Layout Breakdown

36. Layout Elements
• Numbers & Outlines
– Use bulleted lists
– Call-outs
– Quizzes – get people
involved (helps establish the
need)
– Table of Contents

37. Illustrations
• Non-photographic Art
– Charts
– Graphs
– Tables
– Clip Art
– Illustrations
– Watermarks
– Infographics

38. Illustrations - The Eyes Have it
• Your eyes will follow the direction of eyes
in artwork
• Use it to draw attention to your written
elements
• Align the text with the illustration

39. Illustration - Implied Motion
• Attention follows the
direction indicated ...
The movement is
implied

40. Graphic Devices
• Rules
• Drop Caps
• Dingbats
• Bullets
• Screens
• Boxes (use sparingly to highlight
items)

41. Decreased Readability
– ALL CAPS
– Underline
– Italics
– Color

42. Graphic Devices - Rules
• Pick two or three MAX per publication and
use consistently
• Do not intersect Rules

43. Graphic Devices - Drop and Initial Caps
• Draw attention to the beginning of
the body text
• Use large initial letters to indicate the
beginning of a chapter, articles or
section of text

44. Graphic Devices - Dingbats
• Bullet Points
• End-of-article markers to create a visual end-
point
• Highlight important copy
• Can be custom

45. Graphic Devices - Boxes and Bullet Points
• Indicates “This is the primary
point”
• Relate to one another
• Use boxes and bullets like an
outline

46. Design indicates action
• Time Available: As much as needed
• What do I do?
• Long body text
– Break up for skimmers
– Assume the general public has a
6th grade education
– Break up with graphic devices

47. Call To Action
• Offers Proof – Connects message
and reader, creates memory
• Call to action
– Statistics
– Track record
– Testimonials
– Issue a challenge
– Visualization
– Impact Statement

48. Layout Design
• Symmetrical
– Copy is centered and art is
distributed evenly
• Asymmetrical
– Unusual shapes, white space and
color achieve balance

49. 6 Rules of Balance
Anything located in the upper left
quadrant (primary optical area of the
layout has more optical weight

50. 6 Rules of Balance
Large items are noticed more, seen for a
longer time, and remembered better than
small items

51. 6 Rules of Balance
Elements that are dark carry more
optical weight than black and white

52. 6 Rules of Balance
Color conveys more optical weight than
black and white

53. 6 Rules of Balance
White space serves to draw reader’s attention
to whatever is in the “non-empty” space

54. 6 Rules of Balance
• Rectangles are “expected”
• Triangles, ovals, circles, cubes
convey optical weight

55. Resolution and Image Types

56. Raster vs Vector
• Raster or bitmap
– Pixels and grids
• Used with photography and
scanned pictures, good for
photo manipulation
• Not good for scaling
• Vector
– Math and algorithms
• Vectors popular with logos
and symbols
• Easily scalable to any size
• Can edit different parts of
piece easily
56

57. Raster vs. Vector
• Vector images created by math • Raster images are perfectly
square, all the same size one
color at a time

58. 72 dpi vs 300 dpi

59. 72 dpi vs 300 dpi

60. Stock Photos

61. I’m using an image I found through Google. If it’s on
the internet, doesn’t that mean it’s free?
• No. Just because an image is on the internet, it doesn’t mean the image is free to
use.
• You may still need the correct license to use it. There is a difference between an
image being online and an image being “in the public domain” (the term given to
content that is not owned or controlled by anyone).
• http://www.stockphotorights.com/faq/#dtoi

62. Finding Good Images via Google
• Search tools
– Size: Large
– Usage Rights: Labeled for reuse
• Saving the image
– Don’t save the first one that comes up
– Click through to “View Image”
– Then save the image
• Standard Piece of paper at 300 dpi: 2550 by 3300 pixels

63. Stock Photography
• Stock Photography websites are a good place to find pictures and vector images
for advertising, corporate media, etc
• Examples:
– Istockphoto.com
– Gettyimages.com
63

64. Stock Photography
• Advantages
– Almost endless search detail
– Good to use stock photos as templates for illustrations or heavy photo
manipulations
• Disadvantages
– Most pictures look extremely fake and staged, so choose wisely and be
creative
64

65. Stock Images
• Morgue File
• Flickr's Creative Commons pool
• Image*After
• Stock.xchng
• Everystockphoto.
• Studio.25: Digital Resource Bank.
• Freepixels.
• Robin Good
• U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s
Pictures/Graphics site
• http://images.jsc.nasa.gov/
• Earth from Space
• Flickr
• ImageAfter
• Freerange Stock
• Pixel Perfect Digital
• Free Media Goo
• openphoto.net
• Stockvault
• deviantART’s Stock Images section
• Dreamstime’s Free Section
• Fotolia’s Free Section
• The National Oceanic and
Atmospheric Administration (NOAA)