P30 – Day 19: Trading Pages: Layout 101
Color does not add a pleasant quality to design – it reinforces it. ~ Pierre Bonnard
Layout is another one of those places where knowing your intended target audience is going to be of the utmost importance.
Also, taking a second to think about how your audience is going to use your product will save you a lot of headaches later on down the line.
If your content is going to be largely viewed on the screen rather than print, there are different rules, for example. (Printed materials can safely be done in a portrait-type orientation in 11 point font and still be comfortably readable, whereas if your customers will be looking at a screen, a horizontal, landscape-type orientation is easier to read, as is 14 point text. Serif fonts work better for print; sans-serif is easier on a screen. There’s a reason typography is as much a science as it is an art.)
When you know how your buyers are using your material, dive into today’s Action Task, which will take your text and effectively turn that content into a product.
ACTION TASK:
Entire books have been written on making a good layout for an ebook or other publication.
It’s not a small subject, and depending on what software you’re using to create, can be just as time consuming as creating the text.
Since this is a whirlwind product marathon, we’re going to assume that you’re using a regular text editor like MSOffice, Open Office, or Apple Pages. (If you have access to, or are proficient with, things like Adobe InDesign or Quark, by all means…do your thing.) Even without fancy-schmancy layout programs, you can create a professional-looking publication.
(And, for the record, there are tons of sites out there that offer ebook templates for a reasonable fee, too. If you try, and find that your core competency is just somewhere else altogether and layout leaves you frustrated and binging on cookies instead of creating your product — pick one up. Your mental health’s worth the cost.)
Some tips for the DIY Layout Arteests:
1. Decide on what kind of look you want your book to have. Change the colors and fonts to match your existing branding. Consistency is good, as you’ll see throughout these tips.
2. Resist the urge to do light text on a dark background. It’s a nightmare for printers and harder to read for the screen viewers. Also resist the urge to use fancypants fonts for your text.
Sure, the handwritten ones can communicate a certain look, but it’s not worth the lack of readability in the long run. (Remember, the goal is to have them read, learn, and use your information…not to make them work even harder just to read it.) Stick with the basics, at least for the bulk of your text. (Georgia, Times New Roman, Helvetica, Verdana. Boring fonts are a good thing for text. You can get a little more creative with headlines and subheadlines, as long as it’s consistent.)
Never, ever use comic sans, unless your target market consists of five year olds. And never use a background that prints — customers don’t appreciate spending a $50 printer cartridge just to print a book they’ve already paid for.
3. Margins should also be consistent. ¼” is usually enough for most printers. On all sides.
4. Don’t be afraid of white space. It gives the eye a place to rest, and lets the brain process the information. It’s like a visual pause for reflection, and keeps the text from getting overwhelming.
5. ALWAYS (yes, it deserves the all-caps) have a footer with, at the very least, your website, the page number, and, if you don’t have a header with it, the title of the publication.
Pages get separated sometimes when they’re printed. And if someone gets inspired and wants to look up your website right then and there to hire you or buy more of your stuff — that information should be on every page, to be easily accessible.
6. Do keep a copy of the plain text document, with only the pictures you selected embedded, without any of the fancy headers or footers.
Later, if you decide to make this an EPUB or Kindle edition, the fancy formatting will cause you huge headaches…and having a plain copy of your content makes the conversion to Kindle really, really easy.
7. Keep your pictures to a semi-standard size. It’s a matter of consistency, again. Same thing with your headlines, chapter titles, and subheads. Always handle them the same way, in the same color, font, weight, and style, through your whole book.
8. For certain kinds of content, it’s recommended to leave one margin much larger (like, 1-2” wide) for notes or answers to questions. (I know this contradicts #3. Use one or the other, depending on your audience.)
9. One more thing about your images: Resist the urge to make them huge, if the end result is to print. Sure, people can skip printing those pages if they don’t want to waste the printer ink, but if those images are integral to the text…you may end up with some angry, tonerless customers.
When you’re done putting in all your text and images, you’ll need to look at it in its final incarnation. Print your own product. Export it to PDF and view it. Look at your text files or videos and make sure they work. All the layout in the world won’t help you if nobody can access it.
TOMORROW:
Beta-testing isn’t just for software engineers and game designers. Be thinking now about some folks you can call on for a layman’s view of what you’ve got so far.
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