On the inside spreads, you usually want people to be facing inward, toward the inner margins. Typically, on a cover, you want any images of people to face toward the opening of the book, like you’re leading the reader into the book. Tip #4: Face images into the page Print and Digital Documents Otherwise, the photo would be overpowering. On the web, an example of this would be to not place a huge photo next to a small amount of text, unless the text size has been increased to take up more room. By that, I mean view your document in spreads as you work to see how the final product will look to the reader. Look at your document from a more macro level too. Instead of running a table at the bottom of the lefthand page to the top of the righthand page, leaving it where it falls in the text order, put it inside its own frame and have it all together on one page, or run it across the bottom half of the spread. Maybe you place a pull quote on a lefthand page and an image on a righthand page. You can balance out the content by not having all photos, charts or tables all on one page and all the text on the other, for example. Print and Digital Documentsįor print and digital documents, it’s good to balance out the lefthand and righthand pages, called the spreads. Tip #3: Balance page elementsīalance out where you place text, images, tables and sidebars and ensure there is a main focal point, which can be achieved through scale and color. On the web, most themes have already accommodated for these margins. Not only that, but if you have content centered on the page and don’t take that space into account, then the content will be too far toward the gutter. Otherwise, you risk text ending up where those holes will be. If it’s a publication that will lay flat such as one that’s spiral bound and of any length in terms of page count, you need a larger inner margin to accommodate for where the spiral or wire binding will be. Otherwise, you run the risk of text winding up inside the gutter, which means someone won’t be able to read it unless they forcibly hold the book open. Now, for print, if you have a publication that will be perfect bound and it’s several hundred pages in length, you will need larger inner margins, called the “gutter,” to accommodate for that. This applies to page margins and column margins. Tip #2: Use sufficient inner and outer marginsĮnsuring enough space in the inner and outer margins makes text easier to read and really makes something text heavy not feel so overwhelming. On the web, most themes use grids already as part of their setup. You just place and drag its frame edges to meet the guides. It also makes it easy for layout because you never have to go back and get the measurement of an element from page to page.

will be the same width (and height, if desired), resulting in a clean layout that is pleasing to the eye. This will ensure all images or sidebars, etc. Images could be either one, two or three columns in width and one- or two-thirds of the page in height, depending on how your grid is set up. Body copy could run the width of two columns, leaving the outer column for a pull quote or sidebar. In Affinity Publisher, you do this under View > Guides Manager.įor either option, though, you’ll want to set a gutter measurement so that you have space between the sections of the grid.įor instance, you could set up a grid in three columns with a quarter-inch gutter. In InDesign, you do this by going to Layout > Margins and Columns or Layout > Create Guides and set up guides for, say, three rows and three columns. In page layout software, you can set up a grid on the master or regular pages. Tip #1: Use a grid Print and Digital Documents Let’s start out with some that are related to composition.

These tips apply to print but also to digital documents and the web. They say the devil is in the details, and the details are part of what can make a good designer even better.

Print page example