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Lesson

Now that you've experimented with designing a page, its time to move to designing a multi-page document.

Content Organization

Content organization involves sequencing the content, determining what the title and headers will say, identifying where images and graphics are needed, what they will be, what the captions will say, and which pieces of text will be used for breakouts and other purposes.

To do this you need to consider

• what do you want the reader to know?
• what do you want the reader to do?
• what sequence do you want the reader to see in the content?
  • what is most important, what is secondary especially if the reader has limited time?
  • what needs to go first, second, ...?
• which content would benefit from an illustration or image
• what level of language should you use, for example grade 8 reading level, grade 12 reading level? (this is known as readability)
• how do you deal with jargon (words unique to the topic)?

The following are helpful things to keep in mind

• plan ahead
• organize the content
  • use headings
  • make paragraphs easy to see
  • use bullet lists
  • put things in a logical order
  • use only necessary information, get rid of the rest
  • write the introduction after everything else is done
• use simple, clear sentences
• use simple, clear illustrations and images
• place images close to the text it relates to
• use captions
• make sure your typography/stylesheet works with the content by experimenting a bit
• make sure spelling and grammar are correct

Additional Information on Content Organization

• Designing Readable Documents
• Information Design Click on the timeline at the top to see the different parts of the content. This is a bit advanced, but a skim through may be useful for some students.
• Content Organization Although done for web content, it applies to print equally well.

Multi-page Documents

Multi-page documents generally get a different treatment on the opening page than on subsequent pages. The headline and any document identification information is on the first page. The opening page is a right hand page and is designed as a single page. Subsequent pages are usually pairs of left and right pages, and the visual design is across the two pages rather than over a single page. The last page is the back page of the document. It is an even numbered, or left hand page. It, too, can have individualized elements in its design. These 'individualized' designs for the front and back page still fit within the overall design and style sheet for the entire document. The use the same layout grid, fonts and so on.

The following layout examples were built from the PageMaker templates. To see the effect of front page, double-page, and back page designs, you need to see the adobe acrobat viewer for continuous, facing pages. If you can't do that, print the pages and assemble them with pages 1 and 2 back-to-back, pages 3 and 4 back-to-back, and pages 2 and 3 facing each other (you will print 4 sheets of paper, but the newsletter is designed to be printed on both sides of the paper, using only two sheets of paper - of course you can print on both sides of the paper)

• Newsletters
  • one
  • two
  • three
• Brochures (one and two are three-fold, three is two-fold)
  • one
  • two
  • three

Planning a Multi-page Document

The following sequence is a good starting point for planning a multi-page document

• understand the content
• organize the content
• determine the number of pages
• create the column grid (one, two, three, four, ...)
• mock-up the the content layout on the grid (columns of content can span one or more columns on the grid)
  • running head, running foot
  • headlines and related material (overline, deck)
  • blocks of body text
  • sidebars
  • breakouts
  • images/illustrations
  • opening page, main pages and back page layouts
• create the style sheet
  • specify body, and related font face
  • specify body and related font sizes, spacing
  • specify headline, heading and caption font face
  • specify headline, heading and caption font sizes, spacing

Additional Information

• My Design Primer A simple but very complete site that gives overviews of printing, type, web design and more.

Activity

Assigned activities

The purpose of this activity is to build capability with designing multi-page print documents

You will need to print the following .pdf file. The file has two left (verso) and two right pages (recto). If you can, print page one on one side of the sheet, and print page two on the other side of the sheet. That way, four pages will use two sheets of paper. If you can't do that, put pairs of recto and verso pages back to back so that they look like a single sheet of paper.

• 3-column grid

Complete each of the following

• design a mock-up for a 4-page newsletter. Plan for two stories with several pictures for each. You may need to do a few practice sets before doing the final version.
• scan each of the four pages at 100 dpi and save as gif or jpg
• create an entry in the course portfolio and import the layout
• publish to your course portfolio web-site

Test Yourself

There is no self test for this lesson.