Helpful Hints for
Good Publications

In USY, we have a lot of publications. There are newsletters, packets, brochures, flyers, posters, and a slew of other things that we send out to our members. If your publications are easier to read, more people will read them (as opposed to if they are harder to read). This list of publishing tips is here to give you some hints on laying out your publications, and on publishing in general.

• Choose a typeface that best conveys the feeling of your publication.
• Use body text between 10 and 12 points. Use the same typeface and size for all of your body text.
• Make paragraph beginnings clear. Use either an indent or block-style for paragraphs, not both.
• Don't crowd items on a page. If you need to use more paper, use more paper.
• Don't box text so that the border is really close to the text. Make sure to leave white space between the text and the border.
• Use only one space after a period, except in mono-spaced fonts such as Courier.
• Try not to mix fonts or sizes in body text. One may be all you need; two is usually enough.
• Avoid setting headlines and subheadings in all capitals, and avoid ALL CAPS in general.
• Don't set long blocks of text in italics, bold, or all caps, because they're harder to read. Also, don't use too many "special effects" fonts or drop caps.
• Don't underline anything, whether it's the name of a publication or text you want to emphasize. Use italics, bold, or quotes instead.
• Have more white space below a headline than above it.
• Don't make your headlines too short or too long. Stay between 30 and 70 characters.
• Headlines are best set "left aligned", not centered, and don't put lines under headlines.
• Avoid using justified text unless your lines are long enough to get away with it or you autohyphenate. If your columns are very narrow, like in a brochure, justify will result in large gaps between words making the type look strange.
• If your publication is going to be copied in black and white, make sure any pictures you put in are high-contrast so that it is easy to tell what is in the picture when it's in black and white.
• When using pictures, try to find a big picture and make it smaller, rather than take a small picture and make it bigger.
• When you're copying scanned pictures, use the maximum coarseness in the halftone screen of your photo. A good laser printer might print a photo that looks good with very tiny halftone dots, but the photo will look bad when copied.
• Use your resources! If you have a desktop publishing program such as Microsoft Publisher, it will have a great number of templates and clipart that can make your publication look more professional. Also take advantage of free stock image websites such as Image*After www.imageafter.com.