Gem Paper

Avoid These Typographic Pitfalls of Newsletter Design

There are a few imprtant things to keep in mind during a newsletter design process, whether it is a new design or simply the revamping of an old design. If you’re thinking of redesigning your newsletter or creating a new design, make sure to avoid these design and typography mistakes.Avoid:

• Setting type in irregular shapes. Readers read from left to right. Don’t make it difficult for them to find where the next line begins by inflicting irregularly shaped blocks of type, such as a Christmas tree, on them.
• Underlining. Use boldface or italic type instead. The readers’ eyes become confused when you underline more than a few words.
• Hyphenating too many words. When you use narrow columns of type and are justifying the right margin, you wind up hyphenating too many words. This slows the reader. Instead, use a wider column or choose a ragged-right margin.
• Using too many typefaces on a single page. This is a strong temptation for desktop publishers because of the sheer number of fonts available. The result, however, can be an amateurish, disorganized appearance. Don’t make the page look like a ransom note. Proceed with caution when using more than three typefaces per page.
• Using hard-to-read fonts for body copy. Some typefaces, such as Avante Garde, look great in headlines, but are difficult to read in body copy.
• Using small type and tight leading. Most typefaces work best for body copy when sized between 9 and 11 points. Leave plenty of line space (leading) between each line, too. A good rule of thumb is to set leading two or three points higher than the body text size (e.g., 12-point leading with 10-point type).