print issue 06

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Our first newsletter clinic10-point checklist for an imaginative logo!How dyou say Peignot?a pronunciation guideHow to make artwork fromalmost nothing!Tips on maps, pie charts, ads, traps, type and more!

Illustration by Marla Meredith Nifty legal paper background is made of the following process colors: C50 M50 Y50 Ruled lines are one-half point

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How to design cool stuff

Vol. 1 No. 6 /19


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THE MAILBOX

PROBLEMS WITH PIE CHARTS

I cannot figure out how to make an ex-ploded-view, 3-D pie chart in FreeHand;nothing seems to work right and I canttell if its the program or just me. It cantbe impossible; where am I going wrong?

Karen Roe-McCordKansas City, MO

Its not you; regardless of your software,this drawing is agonizingand it is im-possible with FreeHand 2.02. (Biggestproblem: The knife tool refuses to cut acurve at the spot you place it.)

Even with the best software, youmust be resolute; there is so much copy-ing, cutting, layering, and joining that

Ive yet to com-plete a 3-D pie inless than an hour.

COLOR TRAPS

Finally, a maga-zine that provesyou can do full-color work fromthe desktop!Before & Aftergave me the cour-age to try it formyself. Eventhough my firstattempt had sometrapping prob-

lems, it was a

EXPLODED-VIEW, 3-D PIE CHART: A DECEPTIVELY DIFFICULT, TIME-CONSUMING JOB

A 3-D pie has eye appeal but conveys its information no better than a flat pie, somake sure you reallywant to draw one this way before diving in. What makesthe 3-D job so hard? Its that the sideswhich are closed, filled shapes, shareborders; to create them, you must clone, move, cut, close and join dozens ofoverlapping lines. Note above that six separate lines converge to make theyellow corner; when each is in place, six end points occupy the same pixeljusttryselecting the one you need! The only solution is to layereach set of lines, aprocedure which requires forethought and mental juggling; forget the stackingorder just once and youll quickly lose your mind. I made the drawing above inthe new FreeHand 3.0. In spite of slick, quick-as-a-wink layer controls and

(finally) an accurate knife tool, baking this little pie took one very busy hour.

Six line endsconverge on

one pixel!

thrill to see that thesoftware actuallyworks. How about aspecial issue on traps?

Troy TurnerRedmond, WA

A color trap is a slightoverprinting of adja-

desktop publishersfits. Why? Becausewhen PostScript sepa-rates colors for print-ing (cyan for one plate,magenta for another,and so on), it does notrecognize our illusionthat one object may be

atop another, like

cent inks to ensure, should they becomemisaligned, that no white space is visiblebetween them. Think oftrapping as pull-

Trapping is an age-old method of com-pensating for imperfect pasteup, strip-ping and printing, but today its giving

Our eyes see the illu-sion of one box over-lapping another.PostScript sees only

a flat redblue field.

ing your socks up and your pants cuffsdown so your legs wont show if you sit.

FREEHAND STEP-BY-STEP

Its an easy and artful way to show movement.

How to blend around a curve

2. ADD 2-pt BLEND LINESYoull blend from line toline around the curve.Each line is the color ofits end of the blend andmust be long enough sothe blends will clear thecurve, shown here bydashed lines; positionperpendicular to curve.

3. BLEND EACH SEGMENTUse enough steps to en-sure no gaps; blends willrotate around theirinnermost points.Selectblendedsections, Cut,selectfillableshape andPaste inside.

1. DRAW THE CURVESince FreeHand cantblend along a singlestroke (rats), your curvemust be drawn as afillable (closed) shape.

Weve seen a lot of maps likethis lately. Ships and planesare from Adobes Carta font.Note Iraq stands out becausesurrounding land is a uniformsecond color. Blend begins thesame color as the desert sand.


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franklins for hairon the esplanade

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laboris nisl ut aliquip ex ea consequat. Duisautem vel eum irure dolor in reprehenderit involuptate velit esse molestaie son consequat,vel illum dolore eu fugiat nulla pariatur. Atvero eos et accusam et justo odio dignissim.

HAIRSTYLING SPECIAL: $25

MONTCLIFF ADDRESS WILL

HIGHLIGHT 23rd ANNUAL

CONVENTION

pants over socks. Instead, it sees an im-age only as a flat field, where colorAends exactly as color B begins, and sepa-rates them with no overlap.

Some software sets traps by allow-ing colors to overprint (usually a dialogbox selection). But that raises problemsof its own: It is now incumbent upon thedesigner to specify which colors over-print, under what conditions and by howmucha task with which most profes-sionals (to say nothing of amateurs!) aretotally unfamiliar. The computers accu-racy is unforgiving, too; a single misstepcan (and will) botch an expensive job.

My solution? I dont use traps; colorsin Before & Afterare all kiss-fit.

This makes my job intuitive, sincethe Linotronic puts out exactly what myscreen shows. Even better, the printedpages are clean as a whistle; overlappinginks can easily look muddy. The down-side?an occasional, minuscule sliver ofwhite between colors; nothing, really,worth the gymnastics of setting traps.

Some printers will squawk, but mod-

ern pressesmany computer-drivencan register (align) colors with absoluteaccuracy. Before & Afteris printed on a20-year-old, manually adjusted Harrispress; the results speak for themselves.

Traps, in my opinion, are overrated.

THE BUSINESS CARD AD MORASS

Our theater program [for a high-schooltroupe] is littered with little ads. Mostare business cards. It really looks junky,like the advertisers dont care. Id wel-come advice on how to improve the lookof our program.

Jessica LloydMiami, FL

You are in a genuinely tough spot, onethats shared by many professionals, too.A business card ad is usually a sign of acharitable contribution, and youre right:the advertiser doesnt care about themessage or hed take the time to createan ad someone would actually read.

Best way to clean up the mess is todiscard the concept of display continues

As youveseen in television ap-pliance stores, the im-pact of a single imagecan rise dramatically ifthe image is repeated.In print, this wall ofvideo technique is

easy and it works.Key to a good videoimitation is to makesure your pictures areidentically cropped(crop one, then dupli-cate it) and that thewhite spaces betweenthem are absolutelyconsistentany vari-ance will make thecomposite look pastedtogether. (Top: Blackbackground is an easy,no-cost way to addglamour.) Below, oneof many possible varia-tions; grid is added

atop large photographwith PageMakers linedrawing tool.

Experiment; manykinds of images lendthemselves to thistrendy treatment.Photographs look themost like television,and photos of facesare most dramatic.

IDEA!

Production notes

Photographs scanned at300 dpi, 64 gray levels. 64levels is usually more thanenough and requires muchless memory than 256.

EYE-ARRESTING

WALLOFVIDEO

ENERGIZESSMALL

SPACESEASILY


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MORE MAIL

advertising and takethe PBS approach:Set a handsome listof supporters anddonorswith what-ever acknowledg-ments you wishator near the front ofyour program. Thishas three benefits atleast: (1) It looksgood. (2) It shortensyour program bypages, which savesmoney and paper.(3) It returns crea-tive control to you.

If youre stuckwith the ads, consider remaking them ina consistent style.

WHAT ARE WE SCANNING FOR?

Is a scanner worth buying? Our organ-ization has a small budget. We use desk-top publishing for our monthly newslet-

ter and program announcements, whichwe run on our laser printer. The news-letter usually has a dozen or more photo-graphs, which we pay our printer tostrip in. Even $500 would be a signifi-cant expense. What do you think?

Gwenda LippmanRancho Mirage, CA

THE GLASS MENAGERIE

BY TENNESSEE WILLIAMS

WE ARE PLEASED TO ACKNOWLEDGE THAT

THIS PERFORMANCE IS MADE POSSIBLE BY THE GENEROUS

CONTRIBUTIONS OF THE FOLLOWING SPONSORS

ANDERSON & HANSON TOYOTA

BARNABYS GRILL AND OVEN

DOMINOS PIZZA

FLORENTINES CLOTHIERS

JANICE & JOSANNE HANDFIELD

ROBIN AND MELISSA JENSEN

LAURLYNN JONES

RIDGE FORD/MERCURY

O INSURANCE SERVICES

NTY UTILITIES. LAWRENCE TROST

EVISION

Replace charitable but unsightly business cardads with front-of-the-program acknowledgments,saving money, paper and improving the product.1KLAUS SCHMIDT BMW ON THE BELTWAY

FIRST IN CUSTOMER

SATISFACTION

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minimim vena quisinostrud exercitationullamcorper suscipitlaboris nisl aliq uip.

IDEA!

Clever number ads stand

out amidst clutter

Want a small, inexpensive ad thatdraws attention without resorting to

cheap?Unique because they have no bor-ders, these handsome number ads will standout in any amount of noise (try them in theclassifieds) and draw readers for a secondlook. Easy to make, this treatment can beapplied in many ways (try letters).

2KLAUS SCHMIDT BMW ON THE BELTWAYTWO NEW LOCATIONS TO

SERVE YOU BETTER

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nostrud exercitation ul-lamcorper suscipit laborsnisl ut aliquip ex ea con-

sequat. Duis autem veleum irure dolor in voluptate

velit esse molestaie sonconsequat, vel illum dol.

BEFORE & AFTER, HOW TO DESIGN COOL STUFF (ISSN 1049-0035), Vol. 1, No. 6, Dec. 1990. Before & After is a magazine of design and pagelayout for desktop publishers. It is published bimonthly by PageLab, Inc., 1830 Sierra Gardens Drive, Suite 30, Roseville, CA 95661-2912. Telephone 916-784-3880. Copyright 1990, PageLab, Inc. All rights reserved. Second-class postage paid at Roseville, CA andadditional mailing offices. POSTMASTER: Send address change to: Before & After, How to design cool stuff, 1830 Sierra Gardens Drive,Suite 30, Roseville, CA 95661-2912. Subscription rate: $36 per year (6 issues). Canadian subscribers please add $4 and remit in U.S.funds; overseas subscribers please add $18. Back issues: $10 each.Bulk subscriptions: 510: $33 each; 1120, $30 each; 2135,$27 each; 36 or more, $24 each. Bulk subscriptions will be entered under one name and mailed to a single address. The terms Before& After, How to design cool stuff, Xamplex and Type: The visible voice have trademarks pending.

THE MAILBOX includes letters, faxes and telephone con-versations. Address John McWade,Before & After, 1830Sierra Gardens Drive, Suite 30, Roseville, CA 95661.

JUST FOR FUN DEPT.

AVANTetAprsou lArt de fignoler les textes

Scanning photographs is quite a bother,and it has hidden costs. At $10 each, adozen photos per issue will buy a $500scanner in four months, which looks like agood investment. But laser printer half-

tones are no matchfor the quality towhich youre accus-tomed. To restorequality you mustprint your pages ata service bureauan inconvenienceyou dont now haveand add the costto your budget:Four pages of neg-ative film are $60per month, or $720per year. Considerespecially your owntime and skill: Onceyouve learned how

to scan properly (no small feat), you mustbudget 30 minutes of scanning and fuss-ing time per picture; at $10 per hourthats $720and two full workweeksper year. Is it worth it? Probably not.

Far left: Commercialquality output. Left: 300dpi laser output. If youscan your own photos,budget in the cost ofhigh-resolution film.

How does Before & After, How to designcool stufftranslate into French? Subscrib-er Lise B. Roy, a French-English transla-tor in Quebec, writes with the following:

Cool stuff is not easy to translate. Wecould sayAvant et aprs, Le design du texte

par excellence. We could also sayAvant etaprs, ou lArt de fignoler les textes. Thesetwo translations give the feeling we enjoyat reading the publication. What do youthink of them?

Help! I cant read a word!Anyone?


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Simoncini Garamond (SEEMOHNCHEENEE GARAMOND)A version of Garamond released by theSimoncini foundry.

Glypha (GLEEFUH)

Neue Helvetica (NOYUH HELVETICA)Neue is the German word for new. Inthe early 1980s, Linotype redrew theHelvetica family.

Hiroshige (HEAROHSHEGAY)Designed for a 1986 book about Japa-nese artist Ando Hiroshige.

ITC Kabel (KAHBL)Kabel is the German spelling ofcable.Originally designed by Rudolf Koch in1927 to commemorate the first laying ofthe transatlantic telephone cable.

ITC Korinna (COREINUH)

Knstler Script (KEWNSTLER SCRIPT)Knstler is the German word for art-ist. This typeface came out of the Ger-man artistic calligraphy movement ofthe late Victorian era.

ITC Lubalin Graph (LOOBALIN GRAPH,wherebalrhymes with pal)Named for its designer, Herb Lubalin.

Lucida (LOOSIDUH)Designed by Bigelow & Holmes to beeasy to read printed at low resolutions.

Medici (MEDITCHY)Designer Hermann Zapf named thistypeface for the powerful Medici familyof Florence. Medici is based on Italianchancery handwriting and is the ances-tor of ITC Zapf Chancery.

Mistral (MIHSTRAHL)Named by its designer, Roger Excoffon,for the cold winds of southern France.

Neuzeit S (NOYTSITE)

ITC Novarese (NOVARAYSAY)

Named for its designer, Aldo Novarese.

Peignot (PENYO)Designed by A. M. Cassandre andnamed for the French type foundryDeberny & Peignot.

ITC Serif Gothic (SAIRIF GOTHIC)Designed by Herb Lubalin to be a type-face combining features of both serifand sans-serif (gothic) types.

Serifa (SUHREEFUH)

Versailles (VAIRSIGH)

Walbaum (VALLBOUM, where boumsounds like out)

ITC Weidemann (VIEDUHMAHN, similarto vitamin)

Wilhelm Klingspor Gotisch (VILHELMKLINGSHPORE GOTTISH)A gothic design by Rudolf Koch for theWilhelm Klingspor foundry.

MISCELLANEOUS

Bzier curve (BEHZEEAY)Named for the 20th-centuryFrench mathematician whodiscovered it. In PostScript,a bzier is a curved line thatis described by two endpoints and two controlpoints. The end points arethe ends of the curve itself,and the control points determine theshape of the curve, but are not on thecurve itself.

Didot (DEEDOH)French printing family known for twotypographic contributions. One was theinvention of a point system of measure-ment slightly larger than the American-British point and still in use in much ofEurope. The second was development,along with GiambattistaBodoni, of the style of type-faces known as moderns,recognized by their verticalemphasis and high contrastbetween strokes.

Moir (MWAHRAY)A visual interference pattern that oc-curs when two patternsare superimposed. Inprinting, this usuallyrefers to the halftonepatterns that areused when printingfour-color process.

Hermann Zapf (HERMAN TSAHPF)Twentieth-century type designer whohas created such faces as Palatino, Op-tima, Melior and ITC Zapf Chancery.

TYPEFACE NAMES

Aachen Bold (AHKN BOLD)Named for a city in Germany.

Akzidenz Grotesk (AHKTSIHDENTSGROWTESK)Translates from German as TradeGothic.

Antique Olive (AHNTEEK OHLEEV)Named for the French type foundryOlive.

ITC Avant Garde (AHVAHNT GARD)Typeface designed by Herb Lubalin for

Avant Garde magazine.

ITC Bauhaus (BOWWHOUSE)Design prototype created by HerbertBayer in 1925 at the Bauhaus school inGermany.

Belwe (BELWEE, or the Germanic BELVUH)Named after its designer, Georg Belwe.

ITC Benguiat (BENGAT)Named after its designer, Ed Benguiat.

Bodoni (BUHDOHNEE)Named for its designer, GiambattistaBodoni, an 18th-century printer.

Bundesbahn Pi (BOONDESSBAHN PIE)Font of railroad andtravel-oriented symbols.The Bundesbahn is theGerman federal railway.

Charlemagne (SHARLEMANE)For the French emperor ofA.D.742814.

Cochin (KOSHAN, where shanrhymeswith pan)Named for the 19th-century Frenchprinter Nicolas Cochin.

Eras (AIRUS)Latin meaning to exist.

Eurostile (YUROHSTYLE)A popular European-designed sans-serif type.

ITC Fenice (FEHNEECHAY)

Fette Fraktur (FETUH FRAHKTOOR)Fette is the German word for bold andFraktur is a style of blackletter type.This typeface is a very bold blackletter.

Friz Quadrata (FRITS KWODRAHTUH)Named for its designer, Ernst Friz.

Moir

As a kid, Lynne Garell (GAHRELL) was quite cer-tain there was a California city named Ellay. Todayshe is type marketing manager at Adobe. Type in-formation from International Typeface Corporation.

BEFORE & AFTER ILLUSTRATED GLOSSARY

Bzier curve

Here is the definitive pronunciation guide. If you know more than

half, check a map; youre probably in Europe. By Lynne Garell

How do you say Peignot?

MThick-thin strokescharacterize themodern style.

From Bundesbahn Pi 2


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he fun of being a designer

TM

one can nurture; remember as achild watching for faces and ani-mals in the clouds?

Here are 10 imaginative waysto visualize any object; any onecan contribute to a breakthroughdesign. Best use: Turn off yourcomputer, get out your sketch-book and try them one at a time.

Shadow the objectShadows help solvedifficult problems of

perception by showingposition, lighting,levitation.

Part of an objectPerhaps part of the object offers enoughinformation to identify the object.

Point of view

Examine all points of viewfor a fresh look at the object.Rotate for best view.

Contain the objectLines or shapes

provide visual limitsfor the mark. An easyway to focus the mark.

Metamorphosis/

substitutionLet it change into anotherobject. Substitute it for ananimate or inanimate objeof related visual form.

is in looking at thefamil-iarand seeing somethingnew. This is a talent any-

The instructors sketchbook

Drawing a logo? Picture this!The most memorable designs are built on fresh points of view.

SKETCHBOOK BY GREGG BERRYMAN FREEHAND ILLUSTRATIONS BY MARLA MEREDITH

T


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Marks, erasure

Rearrange parts

Ride in it.

Live in it.

Alter scale

Make it hugeormicroscopic. Relateit to a hand, a figureor an animal.

Distort the object

Tie a knot; break it;fold it; inflate it; think

of it as anothermaterial. Its how anillustrator thinks.

Multiples

Audiences enjoy multiples, patterns,object interaction. Even familiar thingschange in appearance when grouped.

Fragmentation/abstraction

Think like Picasso! Reconstitutethe object. Perhaps show onlymarks or effects.

Place in environment

Tell more about the object byshowing it in context, familiaror unfamiliar.


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An item-by-item analysis revealstechniques useful for every job.

There is not enough sand in the sea tocount the ways in which the elementsof a newsletter page can be assembled.

There are so many that if you build apage by clicking aimlesslya headlinehere, a border thereyour chances fora satisfying result are zero.

What makes a page design good? Asin all commercial design, thegood page isthe one that communicates. Communica-

tion means that the reader receives themessage the publisher sends. This is en-tirely different from merely being pretty(although pretty is preferable to ugly); it

Newsletter clinic

A page must be focused

A page must have a center of focus fromwhich the reader can move. Focus is createdthrough the use of visual contrasts; forexample, largesmall, darklight, roundsquare, manyfewand so on. Here, thedesigner has laid out a balanced page, yetthe result is bland and difficult to read.Why? Everything looks the same! The name,calendar, contents, headlines and text are so

similar in size, style and weightand thewhite space is so uniformly distributedthatthe information is effectively masked.

With nothing to attract his eye, the casualreader will turn away. Worse, however, isthat the more resolute reader cant tellwhats importantor even where to startwithout picking through everything himself.Yet the same blandness that makes the pagehard to read also makes it appear uninter-esting; that is, like its not worth the trouble.

FocusA visual contrast (here,a contrast in value) willput the readers eye ex-actly where you want it.

PrioritizeMultiple contrasts pre-sort the page; now thereader has a sense ofwhats most important.

Where to look?Identical squares haveequal value; the readercant tell whats impor-tant or where to look.

USE VISUALCONTRASTSTO GIVE THEREADER AFOCAL POINT

PAGE 1 BEFORE PAGE 1 AFTER

BEFORE & AFTER PAGE MAKEOVER

Before: TAMS isbuilt on a 5-columngrid; each text col-umn spans two gridcolumns; the oddcolumn on the out-side is for pictures,captions and otherstuff (here, the con-

tents). Coarse laserprinter copy is usedas final output; blueink is added on thepress for accents.


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requires more than just clear writing,although clear writing is vital; and, sillyas it sounds, it implies that the reader

reads the pageno reading, no communi-cation. This seems obvious; nevertheless,Ill go on a limb to say that most writingis neverread simply because of weak or

City. Nicola is a brave soul; she sent herwork as a bad example. Actually, its aperfect example; she is, as she put it,

right at that I-know-enough-to-be-dan-gerous stage, with more skill than thebeginner, less than the professional. Hernewsletter is the subject of our clinic.

inappropriate design. Reading asks time,effort and attention: Your page must ap-

pear to be worth the readers time. If it

does not, he will quickly turn elsewhere.Nicola Richter is the editor ofTAMSIN HOUSE, the employee newsletter ofTAMS Consultants, Inc., of New York

Artwork must be attractive Graphics must be purposeful

An illustration of any kindsends a powerful message,but you might think of it as aguidedor, more often, un-guidedmissile. In this case,

TAMS is an impersonal, multinational cor-poration that the designer tried to warmup by picturing home and hearth. Herintent was good but the result illustratesthe heartbreak of clip art; this little housemerely looks grade-schoolish, like anescapee from a Monopoly board.

Using artwork to stir a specific feelingin this case warm and cared foris anextremely difficult undertaking thats bestleft to the truly artistic; the rest of usshould seek a nonillustrative solution intype, shapes, tone values and so forth. Anartistic attempt that falls short will lookdumb (or cheap) and is very misleading.

The most commonerror with artwork isthat of illustrating aword literally. Here,for example, TAMS INHOUSE has beenillustrated with ahouse, yet the com-pany, an engineeringand environmentalplanning firm, hasnothing much to dowith houses. Artworksends a separatemessage; it shouldcomplement, notduplicate, the words.

A calendar is a veryeffective graphic de-vice that helps thereader visualize datesby placing them in a

familiar context. The unmarked calendarabove, however, conveys no informationthe reader doesnt already have. Its pres-ence, therefore, adds visual noise (any-thing which draws the eye uselessly) thatdisturbs communication.

S M T W Th F S

1 2 3 4 5 6

7 8 9 10 11 12 13

14 15 16 17 18 19 20

21 22 23 24 25 26 27

28 29 30 31

Right: A calendar of important datescan be awkward to construct; unlessit is large (and therefore unsightly),each square is too small for text.Solution? For a small calendar, useoversize text boxes for key dates,add weekend dates for reference;disregard all others. Contrasts addclarity; note how dark labels clearlystand out. A job for FreeHand.

Nothing sets the tone of a newslettermore certainly than the nameplate; anatural focal point, it is read first andjudged instantly. To design a multiword

The nameplate sets the tone

Left, top: Extremelyheavy Futura ExtraBold contrasts sharp-

ly with Neue Helveti-ca Thin, which pullsthe eye for a double-take. Contrasting col-ors (white on black)amplify the effect.Left, bottom: Gray(70%) on black per-mits white type tospan the nameplate;black box providesdefinition and thevisual muscle toattract the eye.

nameplate from scratch, start with typeonly; draw the readers eye with con-trasts in size, style and colorin thisway, the words can interact withoutcompeting. The greater the contrasts,the quicker youll start seeing results.

Craftsmanship says quality

Craftsmanship is attention to detail:uniform spacing, alignment of columns;things like that. Craftsmanship is differ-ent from style; it is the fit and finish. Ahomely but well-crafted page is more pro-fessional than a flashy design, poorly built.Some clues:

he Harmon Meado

Restoration, TAMS1990 Excellence on

Award Competition, receivAward at the Waterfront CT

When used to start a

story, an initial capi-tal should be bigenough to be seen(try about four timesthe text size) and forthe neatest appear-ance should alignwith the baselineofits adjacent text.

Above right: Letter Tis trickier than some.Note how the remainder of the first word tuckstight against it. (The two elements are part ofthe same word and should be spaced as such.)Note clean baseline alignment.

Above: The eye isquietly disturbed bymisalignments whichoccur often betweencaptions and text.Adjust carefully.

TAMSI n h o u s e

T hetion, T


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Never point out the obvious

Editor and designershould control thepage, not vice versa.If you add filler justto make the designlook right, you havethe wrong design.

Design for the reader

Theres a reason the most honored (andwidely read) publications are not fashionedin hot, trendy styles: Its because theyredesigned for the reader, not the artist.

To a reader, words are paramount. A

simple page thats a pleasure to read willbe perceived as better designed than a more sophisticatedpage that isnt. When the goal is communication, who else isbetter qualified to judge?

AfterBefore

Talk less

Mark Twain said it best: Id have writtenyou a shorter letter but I didnt have thetime. Take it from someone who knows:16 pages are harder to write than 64.

Newsletters differ on this matter; sometopics are so compelling they could behandwritten on Kleenex and be read. Most,however, are not; 300-page magazines areroutinely perused and tossed aside.

No matter how skilled the designer, apage thats jammed with text will not beread. Your first goal, therefore, is to makeyour pages approachable. This is generallydone with pictures (they say lots) and openspace, which acts just like an open door.

You say you have five pages of editorialto stuff into four? My rule: Cut it in half.Then again. And when you cant cut anymore, cut it in half again. If theres nothingleft, there was nothing to begin with.

Fine-tune it yourself

Advanced as it is, the computer has nei-ther eyes nor aesthetic judgment, so dontrely on auto for everything. Example:

Page 1 makeoverhas less copy thanthe original yet is

likelier to be read.Why? Noncontribut-ing elements (calen-dar and contents)have been removed.Disruptive text wrapsare gone. The photois now central. Con-trasting styles sepa-rate headline anddeckhead for clarity.Open space (notecaption) is simplymore approachable.

Right: Details count. Herethe designer, in search ofa balanced page, centereda photo across two text col-umns. Result? Extremelynarrow passages aside thephoto make reading awk-ward. A simple alternativewas to move the photo tothe left margin and up, per-mitting adequate text tothe right and beneath.

How ragged is ragged?

Text set Align left,traditionally calledragged right, canleave an unaccept-ably wide and gnarly

margin if its merelyplopped into place.

For the lookof a112-pica margin, setSpace between col-umnsto 1 pica, oreven less (bottom).In a busy newsletter,it helps to set theHyphenation zoneto0, which forceswords as close aspossible to the mar-gin before breaking.

Before: 1p6 margin, 3-pica hyphenation zone

After: 0p11 margin, 0-pica hyphenation zone

Wetlands Restoration,xcellence on the Water-ion, received an Honornational conference thisin Industries Director

into account aprojects relatioto the water, doriginality andmon civic con

tries Director of

g, accepted the awardHartz Mountain.President G. Barrietended the awardaterfront Center

tion, educatio

pact, and envimental sensitiCategories incartistic and cuprojects, the

Overlapsanother box

Fully enclosed Touches edges

PAGE NOTES The dozens of disparate elements in this article are organized by background boxesandboxes within boxes (it gives them something in common). This technique has a wide range of usesand adownside: A strict box layout is predictable and therefore boring. The way around that? Extend some boxesto borders and beyond so they flirt with one another. Left: four variations, each of which appears below.

Extendspast edge

No, no, no, never, never, never. Here, thedesigner was restricted by the odd columnof the 5-column grid and chose to fill thespace with a table of contents; superflu-ous to this three-article newsletter, its first

entry is the adjacent front-page story!Such a move may seem merely silly, butit can be fatal to the credibility of the edi-tor. (Im not kidding.) How? By pointingout whats obvious, especially in such aprominent space, the newsletter is slight-ing the readers intelligence. It instantlybecomes a frame of reference; the readerwill approach other articles with the silentsuspicion that they are equally trivial.

Especially harsh is that this effect is un-seen; the reader will rarely be aware of hisdecision, yet the struggling editor willsoon be left wondering why no one is tak-ing her hard work seriously.


11/16

TM

BACK TO THE FUTURE In the photographers eyewas a fine sense of historythe vice presidentin person at an award-winning project sitebutwhats actually on film is a tiny man ankle-deepin gray grass. Poor pix are common as carrots.

MOTION ADDS VIGOR Youll needretouching software to take thisstep (sorry), but the reader nowhas something in common withthe VP: his windy blueprints.

ZOOM IN ON THE SUBJECT Cropping brings the vice presi-dent into view; its how a designer says look here. Free-Hand reflectsthe photo so the man faces into the layout,holding the readers eye to the page. Reflection is usefulunless detail is importantnow everything is backwards.

Cropping almost always improves a photograph

PAGES 2 & 3 AFTER

PAGES 2 & 3

BEFORE

Before: Headline and graphic are decep-tive; they look like a new story rather than acontinuation of the cover story. The readerwill figure it out but he shouldnt have to.After: White space serves as a stage; itspans the gutter and cleanly unites the twoparts of the Whats New?section. Thejumphead is now proportionate to its importance.

Before: Asymmetrical 5-columngrid requires too deft a touch tobe practicalthe empty outsidecolumn is just too wide (a betteralternative is seven columns). Aclean, three-column page (After)is built atop six columns and ismuch more forgiving. Note belowthat headlines on facing pagesare redundant; at a glance, right-page text seems like the start ofa new ar ticle rather than the end.


12/16

TM12

PAGE 4 BEFORE PAGE 4 AFTER

Dont publish your experimentsTypography guides the reader

The reader will move confidently through apublication if its typography establishes aclear hierarchy, thereby making it clearwhat hes about to read. Hierarchy is mosteasily created with typographic contrasts:

Before: TAMS personal page is its most read. Why? Because people aremost naturally interested in other people. It is no coincidence, however, thatthis is also the one page where homemade clip art and the look-who-just-had-a-babyarticles harmonize; the page isexactly what it appearsto be.

Even so, this clip art is plainly low grade; because it looks like childrendrew it, its use in a professional document lowers the credibility of theorganization. Moral: No ar twork is better than poor ar twork. To illustrate:(After) The makeover abandons artwork entirely in favor of splashytypography. It is not an easy solution (it took six tries) but note how sharpcontrasts in type size, style and color (black or white) draw the eye brisklyfrom item to item. Note, too, that no two settings are alike! This tells thereaderbefore he reads very farthat each is a dif ferent kindof item.

The computer is a marvelous instrument,full of endless surprises. As much fun as itis to play, however, you must leave yourexperiments on the editing room floor. Everyjot and tittle that gets into print conveys amessage (for good or ill); you must havefirm control at all timesof whatthat message is. Example:Here, a picture has been

dropped into a text col-umn just to watch thesplash. The result isentertaining but ex-tremely hard to read;English has a normalflow and this settingdisrupts it completely.

T A M S N E X T G E N E R A T I O N

TAMS Next Generation

Professional NewsMs. Domingue Speaks

at GIS Conference

Right, top: You canttell these heads apart;identically set in Hel-

vetica bold, they givethe reader no cluethat they are differ-ent kindsof informa-tion. Bottom: Samewords set in con-trasting sizes, stylesand colors. Its clearat a glance whichare standing heads(regularly publishedpieces) and which isthe story headline.

Ms. Domingue Speaksat GIS Conference

P R O F E S S I O N A L N E W S

Typefaces before:Headlines: Helvetica boldText: Palatino 10/Auto

Typefaces after:

Headlines: Helvetica Inserat (sans serif) orCopperplate 31bc, 32bc or 33bc (serif)Text: Adobe Garamond 12/15


13/16

TM

TYPE: THE VISIBLE VOICE

2.A CHANGE OF COLOR CLARIFIESReversing the 5from a bar erases thedoubt: Neither font nor reading orderhas changed, but it is now clear thereare two kindsof information; Shell un-leaded is the gasoline; the 5 is something else. It is not clear that 5signifies a pump number, yet when asked What pump are you on? itsprobably what will come to mind. Equally effective in black and white.

5 SHELL UNLEADED

1. WHAT PUMP ARE YOU ON, SIR?By setting the sign in Neue Helvetica Black, the designer has chosen abusinesslike presentation. But the setting begs a question: Whats the 5?Although the English is correct, the type gives the three messages (pumpnumber, brand name and type of gasoline) the same voice; that is, thesame tone and emphasis. Since all three are equally important, whatsmissing? Contrasts!although the messages are equal, they are not thesame; differences in weight and color will help the motorist comprehend.

5 SHELL UNLEADED

5 SHELL UNLEADED

4. COLOR CONTRASTS ARE STYLISHHere, three levels are achieved withcolor changes only; the type weightsare identical. Reversed to white, Shellis cheery and attractivea nice corpo-rate statementyet the information of real importance to the motorist isleft black and is dominant. In black, white and gray (50%) the treatment iscleanbut both set in white, there is room to confuse number 5and Shell.

3. WEIGHT CHANGE ADDS A THIRD LEVELOne advantage of a type family with awide range of weights is that contrastcan be created without changing thefont. Here, Neue Helvetica Thin makesShellrecedethe motorist probably knows what station hes atso thekey word unleadedstands out. Inset emphasizes brand name. The con-trast is so great the words are distinct even with no space between them.

5 SHELLUNLEADED

5 SHELLUNLEADED

5 SHELLUNLEADED

5 SHELLUNLEADED

6.STACKED IN TWO COLUMNSStacked type improves the bar-lesssetting; it keeps the eye focused in asmall area. Against red, yellow Shellrecedes sufficiently to allow thin, whiteunleadedto be seen; result? three distinct voices. Inset, clarity using colorchanges only. Contrast is so great between white 5and black backgroundit stands distinct from lower-contrast color words. A quick-to-read solution.

5. WITHOUT THE BAR, SPACE IS NEEDEDWith Shellthe least significant infor-mation (to the motorist)in thin white,an illusion of open space appears;bold, black type is what the eye seesfirst. Acceptable but less effective, it pulls the eye two ways. Inset: On red,white type is stronger than black; reading order is reversed and improved.Why? The eye naturally moves from left to right and ignores the large gap.

5 SHELL

5 UNLEADED

5 SHELLUNLEADED

SHELLUNLEADED 5 SHELL5 UNLEADED

How contrasts create style

Creating contrast is the most commonof all typographical techniques; it yields

the greatest results in the shortest time.How? It is the contrast between objectswhich draws the eye: big against small,black against white, few against many,and so forth. An insect can hide motion-

less on a leaf and remain invisible until itmoves. Then, it is the contrast of move-

ment against a stable background thatmakes it visible.

In type, contrast takes many forms:large/small, upper/lower case, roman/italic, serif/sans serif, heavy/light, black/

white, plain/fancy. As these relationshipschange, the toneand sometimes the sub

stanceof the message changes.Type has never been easier to alter;

the computer has made it possible to ex-plore hundreds of permutations in a click.Here are some principles to watch for:


14/16

Shallow2 pts. wide Medium4 pts. wide Deep6 pts. wide

45sunlight plusangled edgestransform this

. . . into this

HighlightHighlights are lighter than the colorof the object. This highlight has20% less black.

ShadeShades are darker than the color ofthe object. This shade has 30%more black.

ColorThis disk was made by mixingprocessyellow (Y) and black (K).

10%Y, 10%K

10%Y, 30%K

10%Y, 60%K

How light adds dimension

Raised

Highlight towards light source

Depressed

Shade towards light source

The effect of 3-D relief is created by adding edges to aflat object. The edges are then colored light or dark todepict reflected light. An object will appear raised ordepressed depending on the position of the highlightand shade relative to the light source.

Light from a 45 angle above results in a natural placeto divide an object into light and darkat diagonals.The width of an edge determines how raised or howdepressed an image appears.

TM14

Light and dark edges meet in cor-ners which, to be

accurate, shouldbe sharply angled.To create real

angles, objects mustfirst be drawn, thencut, joined, filled and

abutted (right), procedures which demandforethought and concentration. The results are terrific.

There are two techniques to use

Filled shapes

This way is easier. Up close, lines with round ends(caps) have only the hint of an angle, but step back andno one will notice. This technique is ideal for rendering

small images and detailsand it is the only practical

way to outlineodd shapes.

Lines with round ends

Why round ends? Youll see:They align perfectly when cut,with no adjustment.

FREEHAND STEPBYSTEP

Turn your clip art into something cool.

How to build artworkin 3-D relief


15/16

3. CUT EACH LINE where you want toseparate light from dark (use the knifetool). Darken the segments that fall inthe shade.

1. DRAW A BOXFillwith 50% black.

3.SPLIT AT CORNERSSplitthe rectangle atits diagonal corners.Color the lines 15%black and 70% blackas shown.

2. CLONE THE BOXSet the Fillto None.Under the Linemenu,select a line Weight(here, 3 points) androundends (Cap).

How to draw angled edgesusing filled shapes

This procedure is easier if you first select a grid size in the Documentsetupdialog (here its 3 points), then turn on Snap to gridand Snap to guides.Before drawing, set both Filland Linemenus to None.

Irregular curvesUse round-end lines to add the illusion of 3-D relief to objects made of irregularcurves. Note, however, that its usually impossible to divide an irregular curve intodiscrete areas of light and darktwo shades just arent enough! The solution?Fake it; adjust carefullyand consistently. Below, the right and bottom edges arepredominantly dark, the left and top edges mostly light.

1. DRAW 2 CIRCLESCrisscross two rulerguides. Press theoption+ shiftkeysto draw two circlesfrom the center out.Fillthe inner circle

with 40% black.

2. ROTATE THE OUTERCIRCLE AND SPLIT

In the Rotatedialog,Rotatethe outer circle45 from Center ofselection. Ungroup.Select the diagonal

points shown andchoose Split element.

3. CLOSE EACH HALFAND FILL

Use theElementinfodialog to closeeach half. Filltophalf with 15% blackand bottom half

with 70% black.

3. SPLIT AT CORNER POINTSSplitrectangles at diagonal cor-ners. Movelower lines horizon-tally 0p3 (use the Movedialog).

4. CONNECTONE END OF EACH SET1) Click to activate endpoint A.2) With the pen tool, click onendpoint B. 3) Marquee at B andJoin. Repeat this procedure withthe second set of lines.

2. DRAW A SECOND RECTANGLEFrom the same center, draw asecond rectangle 3 pointslarger on each side. Ungroup.

1. CRISSCROSS TWO RULER GUIDESDeactivate Previewmode. Pressthe optionkey to draw a rectanglefrom the center out. Ungroup.

6. DRAW THE TOP RECTANGLEDraw a rectangle directly atopthe orginal. Fill50% black.

5. CLOSE THE SHAPES AND FILLSelect one shape at a time; usethe Element infodialog to closeeach. Fill15% and 70% black.Movelower shape back. Preview.

A

B

A

B

A

1

2

3

B

How to draw edges using lines

Two-tone circlesTransform plain circles intobuttons or knobs by addingan edge of light and dark.

(OUTLINES ARE FOR CLARITY ONLY)

2.CLONE THE SHAPESet the Fillto None.Select a line Weight(here, 1 point) androundends (Cap);color a lighter shade.

1.DRAW AND FILLDraw or trace a shapeand Fillwith, oh, green.


16/16

Whelp it; Im going to tell you about it.

Before & Afteris in-your-hands proofthat desktop publishing is for realnot

just the words-and-pictures part but thepublishing part as well. One year ago wewere a staff of two; we had no subscrib-ers, no underwriters, no contributors, noinvestment capital and no real cash. Ourmarketing program consisted of a singleadvertisement run in one magazine; wehad no direct mail campaign, no productannouncement, no public rollout, none ofthe usual things. We were thoroughly ex-perienced and well-connected, but therewas no back door; the moment real peo-ple began sending real money, we spentit and were committed. The launch ofBefore & Afterwas an exercise in high-wire tension and nothing less.

One year later, were news. Before &Afterhas attracted more than 12,000 sub-

scribers from 50 states and 30 countries.New subscriptions have soared to nearly

ebrates one full year. What anexciting year it has been! I cant

ith this issue, Before & Aftercel-

JOHN McWADE

How to design cool stuff

Editorial and subscription offices

1830 Sierra Gardens Drive, Suite 30, Roseville, CA 95

Telephone 916-784-3880 Fax 916-784-3995

For postal, copyright, subscription and back issue

information, please see the bottom of page 4.

Publisher and creative director:John McWade

Associate publisher and editor: Gaye McWadeEditorial and design assistant: Laura Zugzda

Subscriber services: Robbin Jellison

Success on the high wire

PRODUCTION NOTESBefore & Afteris totally desktop-publishedwith Aldus PageMaker 4.0 and FreeHand2.02; every element on its pages can be builtusing the most basic equipment upon whichthe software will run. Youll be interested toknow that to prepare this issue we created350 individual graphics documents (really)which occupy 110 megabytes of disk space.Our hardware: Apple Macintosh IIfx and IIxcomputers with 8mb RAM, 13" Apple RGBmonitor with 8-24 GC video card; SuperMac19" RGB monitor; MicroNet 644mb hard disk

and NuPort card; MicroNet 45mb hard diskswith removable Syquest cartridges (for trans-fer and backup). Laser printer: QMS PS800II.B&W scanner: Agfa Focus II. For color proof-ing: QMS ColorScript 100. Plate-ready film:Linotronic 300 (RIP 4), 2540 dpi (usually),150-line screen. Our ser vice bureau is Litho-graphics in Sacramento. Before & Afterisprinted in Sacramento by W. W. Hobbs on amanually adjusted Harris four-color press.Colors are kiss-fit (no traps).

ABOUT THE PUBLISHERJohn McWade is the founder and voice ofBefore & After, and its chief designer andwriter. Mr. McWade has been an award-winning publication designer for 21 years.He founded PageLab, the worlds first desktop publishingstudio, in March 1985 and has since written and lec-tured exhaustively on this new industry. Clients includeApple, Adobe and Aldus, for whom he created two Portfo-liotemplate packages. He often answers his own phonebecause hed just as soon chat with readers as work.

Howd we weave the pencils?I cant think of a single good use for thisprocedure other than entertain-ment, but heres how to do it:

In any stack or set oflayers, one object is alwayson the bottom . . .

1.Draw a box asshown aroundthe bottom-

most pencil

2.Clonethe pencil

3.While its still active,Cutthe clone

4.Select the box

5.Paste inside.

6.Then simply selectBring to front. The illu-sion is completewhen you change theFilland Lineto None.

FREEHAND STEP-BY-STEP

2,000 per month. Our full-time staff hasgrown to five, each selected with thegreatest care. Weve been written about(very flattering) and emulated (equallyflattering); readers write and telephoneregularly (most fun), and professionalwriters and designers are calling us.

This success is not a mirage. It existsbecause of the miracle of technology thatsits on the desk in front of you.

The computer has made it possible,literally, to write, edit, typeset, designand produce a magazine in full color on asingle desktop. The cost savings arehuge; by the time film emerges ready forprinting from the Linotronic, a publisherhas escaped 75 percent of his normalproduction expenses. Further, withoutthe need for complex prepress stripping,printing costs are reduced to paper andtime, nothing compared to the old days.

And oh, the toys! I tried my first ac-celerated big screen monitor last week.Breathtaking! With 24-bit color our

pages leaped to life with plenty of out-of-the-way space for palettes and dialogs; itwill increase our productivity out of pro-portion to its cost. Two months agoAldus sent FreeHand 3.0 for a look; theprogram has been virtually reborn. It isexquisite; smooth as glass and more use-ful than anything from the competition;get in line now. Desktop color scanners

will revolutionize printing; by the year2000 a quarter of all printed materialwill be in full color. Accordingly, a

$10,000 color printer is worth morethan its price. Computers are fastand getting faster; every two

years the speed increase becomes sig-nificant. The result of these advances is

the coolest of all: An entire generationof users is awakening to the untapped

power of visual communication.We enter our second year at high

speed, full of excitement. The air is thickwith ideas; design is a classic disciplineof endless potential. Weve been thrilledby your embrace; youve become friendsand colleagues, and we look forward tothe continued pleasure of your company.