LEAFLET DESIGN

The purpose of a patient information leaflet is to provide brief information and answer ques-tions nin a small space. There are two main categories of leaflets, one that is intended to persuade the reader on a topic - they are there to generate a response and will ask the audi-ence to do somthing. such as a stop smoking leaflet, getting tested for diabetes, why they should seak an osteopaths help for a bad back etc. and the other that takes the patient through something like what their surgery will entail or recovery after a surgery and what they can and cannot do, what exercises to do, or how to change their feeding tube or catheter. Although both will have a slightly different lay-out and will be weighted differently in content the main design principles below will remain the same.

1. Headline s it hungry enough? does it make people want to pick it up. Is it relevant? This is the main (and largest) text element in the design. It can be in addition to an art element or it can be the art element. Opt for a readable typeface that is interesting and demands attention.

2. HierarchyHeaders: This is the main (and largest) text element in the design. It can be in addition to an art element or it can be the art element. Opt for a readable typeface that is interesting and demands attention.

Text: Provide the information here in a concise man-ner. As for sizing, either drop the font size size from the header for very clear hierarchy or continue to use a larger size and use a contrast technique such as colour or weight. The golden number for body copy line lengths is a minimum of six words per line and an average of about 30-40 characters (including spaces) on each line. Any less and your sentences will be too choppy, any more and you risk your sentences becoming tedious and difficult for the eye to get through.

The fine print: It’s everything else that is needed to be on the leaflet. Make keep it out of the way probably on the back page.

3. Get your words right Words are critical and make the difference between cus-tomer enquiry and the recycling bin! How many boring NHS leaflets have you picked up or were given and then instantly thrown away. Make them what to keep it Answer these two pressing questions ?Put your self in your audiences shoes when putting a leaflet together and think:Whats in it for me (WIIFM)Why should i do what you tell me or why should i listen to what you are informing me?

This will really help focus your text and images.Focus on benifits - possitive advertising sells more than negative. Shock horror doesnt always work. Use the word YOU if you are trying to sell an idea to someone - appeal directly to the audience. They are not interested in what you think - only what they have to gain

4. Avoid Widows and OrphansAn easy way to take your design from amateurish to polished and professional is to recognise and eliminate typographical widows and orphans. The odd few widows and orphans are bound to pop up in any type-based de-sign you undertake, it’s almost inevitable, but recognising them and dealing with them is the important step.

“A widow is a term for a line of text that belongs to a paragraph and has moved over to the next column. An orphan is similar, but a single word on its own on a line, poor little thing.” Drew de Soto

There are a few ways you can deal with widows and orphans. First of all, if you have been given the okay, you can manually edit the text to adjust the line length to remove the problem altogether. Another tip, as is demon-strated in the graphic, is to place a soft return (press shift + return) on the word in front of your orphan to bring it down a line. Lastly, adjust your textbox or column sizes to allow for type to move around enough to remove of the orphans and widows.

5. Use the correct alignment

Left aligned type is the most common form (note how even this text is aligned to the left) and for a good rea-son. It’s the most easily legible and gives a nice, neat left edge to the text. When in doubt, left align.

Right aligned type does what it says on the tin, it aligns the type to the right. This is mostly used for decora-tive purposes within branding or small pieces of type in certain publications. Right alignment isn’t recommended for large chunks of text, though as it can get hard for the eye to follow, the ragged left edge makes it slightly more difficult to find a new line.

Centered text definitely has a wide variety of uses. Posters, invitations, branding etc. Centered text makes it easy to balance out a bit of type and make for an aes-thetically pleasing type arrangement. However, again, it’s not recommended for larger bodies of type as the lack of a neatly aligned edge makes it tricky for the eye to move from one line to the next.

And finally, we have justified type. Justified text can be deceptive, it seems like the perfect alignment module – a neat left and right edge, what more could you ask for? In some cases justified type is fantastic, novels are a common example. Justified text has its issues though, mainly in terms of spacing. As you can see in the graphic, towards the end of paragraphs where there are fewer words on each line, the justify tool will often spread the type awkwardly from left to right, leaving awkward word and letter spacings.

6. Always use a gridA well-implemented grid is a bit like a fairy godmother, it can transform your design from something average to something clean, clear and effective.

Grids come in many shapes and sizes and you can build them to be flexible, adaptable and to suit your design. Grids help designers align elements on the page in rela-tion to each other which often produces a neater, more logical design. Check out the sample grids in the included graphic, a two, three and four column grid can be used to help arrange type and imagery in various ways.

The fewer columns your grid has, the more uniform your design will be. Your elements may have a strong sense of alignment, but you won’t have as much flexibility as you would with a grid with a few more columns. Again, in the graphic, check out the 4 column grid to the right, some elements stretch over a few columns and others remain within the set columns, allowing for a few differ-ent size text boxes and images without abandoning the alignment. Play around with a few different grids and find what works for you and your design.

7. Quality people are tactile - make sure they have a good thickness of paper - say 100gsm with a nice finish of matt, silk or luxury paper. Remember to save your file as CYMK for print rather than RGB which is for computer screens,. Call for action - Finally it is important that the leaflet has a call to action - to encourage your audience to do some-thing. - link to website, phone number, steps to follow etc.

8. Audience One of the more important elements of a brief is the question “who am I designing for?” Every design has an intended audience, the people that will be viewing the design and receiving the communication, so it makes sense to keep them in mind.

Take a look at the examples of design for specific audi-ences. The example on the below doesn’t quite fit the mark for this brief and audience. The target market for a children’s concert poster is children and their parents, so a sophisticated, black and white design probably won’t attract the right attention or send the right message. The example on the right, though, suits the content and audience much better. A bright and colorful design with recognisable graphics is more eye-catching and keeping in tone with the demographic and event.

9. Logical colour paletteColor is a powerful tool for designers, so it makes sense that a carefully arranged and consistent palette would be an important step in all design endeavours.

When compiling a color palette, it might be worth looking into color theory and past uses of color. Color theory dic-tates that certain hues can certain eff ects on consumers, i.e. orange is thought to stimulate an appetite, which is why orange is a commonly used in fast food designs.

While switching things up sometimes can pay off , be sure to make educated moves when experimenting with color. For a very simple example, have a look at the two gener-ic logo types in this graphic, one for a fl orist that spe-cialises in romantic bouquets, and one for a paintballing centre that promises a messy and exciting time. On the left, each logotype has been given a color scheme that quite obviously doesn’t work, and on the right, a more appropriate one.

There are certain codes and conventions when it comes to color, and while experimenting and thwarting expec-tations can make for a punchy design, be sure that your use of color isn’t too distracting or confuses your mes-sage.

10. IllustrationsAre the images clearly illustrating the text? are they appropriate? Do all the labels on the images describe something in the text? Make sure its approprate and high quality.

11. Have a consistent font paletteJust as you have a palette of colors, so should you have a carefully selected palette of fonts. Like colors, certain fonts have certain ‘moods’ or ‘emotions’ associated with them—you probably wouldn’t use Curlz MT for a law fi rm branding.

A lot of designers recommend that a design in gener-al should have a maximum of two to three fonts avoid overcomplication. Choose fonts that complement each other and your communication to make for a logical and eff ective design.

12. Never stretch typeThis is a very simple design rule, it’s easy to understand, easy to remember and easy to execute: do not stretch your type. In any case. Fonts are (most of the time) built with careful care and attention to the shapes and propor-tions of each letterform, so to distort this by stretching it can just take away from the eff ectiveness of the font.

A lot of the reason people often stretch their type is they need it to be slightly taller or wider than it currently is. There is a solution to this that doesn’t involve distorting your type. There is an endless supply of just about any kind of font you could ever want, there are tall fonts (I recommend Bebas Neue), wide fonts (have a look at Sil-verfake) and everything in between, all at your disposal. Some may cost you, but fi nding that perfect typeface can just be priceless.

13. Avoid color discordMore commonly referred to as ‘color clashing’, color discord commonly occurs when two colors that are widely separated on the color wheel are paired together. Dis-cordant colors create a muddy or ‘vibrating’ eff ect that makes it a struggle for the eye to fi nd the line between each color.

A pretty simple way to avoid color discord is to use hues that have a fairly high degree of contrast, check out the graphic for an example of contrasting colors. The eye can easily pick up on the line between each color, and there is little to no ‘vibration’ or muddiness as there is in the discordant colors to the left.

Some designers, particularly advertisers, lean into the ef-fects of color discord, as they feel it creates an eye-catch-ing design. So, while avoiding color discord for your more aesthetically-pleasing designs is generally recommended, this is not to say that it is entirely impossible to bend the rules of color discordition in your favour.

14. Use The Right ToolsA very common mistake that could be easily avoided with a proper tool selection is rasterized logos. For those of you who aren’t entirely familiar, let me break it down quickly. There are two types of digital graphic files, rasters and vectors. A raster graphic is made up of a grid of many pixels, whereas a vector graphic is instead made up on many lines or “paths”. One of the biggest difference between a vector and raster is the ability to scale the graphic. Since a raster is made up of a certain amount of pixels, at a certain point of scaling, the image will become pixelated (as you can see to the left of the graphic), but a vector (to the right) does not have this problem.

Since a vector can be scaled to just about any size without losing the sharp edge of its shapes, it’s generally the more favourable option for logos, which often have a large range of sized applications, from the side of a pencil to the side of a building. So, to create a logo using a ras-ter graphic limits your brand’s applications, making raster logos a very common but easily avoided mistake.

15. Consider Your MediumA common mistake is not counting for gutters when designing for publications. A gutter is the space between two facing pages that is left both for readability reasons and also to accommodate for the binding process. In instances where a certain size of gutter is needed for binding, a designer must account for this during their process, and often this means ensuring they don’t place any graphics or type over the gutter. If they do, during the binding process, the design that is spread across the two pages and gutter will run into the seam, distorting the image or type. Check out the graphic for an example of the effects of running type across a gutter that is later used for binding. Try to instead work around the gutter, like the example to the right does to avoid the dreaded pull.

16. Learn The Rules Of GrammarFirst of all, ampersands. Ampersands do not belong in body copy, avoid substituting an ‘and’ for a ‘&’. Instead, ampersands are most commonly used for organisation titles (e.g. “Johnson & Johnson”) or stylistically within logo/identity design.

Another common error that is easily fixed is double spaces after punctuation. The simple solution? Don’t. One space is more than enough. If you find that your type

still looks a little too squashed, perhaps try adjust your tracking or just switch to a new font.

One more point is hyphens and dashes, something you’re bound to come accross eventually, even within this article there have been a small handful. Basically there are three types of hyphens/lines: the hyphen (-), the en dash (–) and the em dash (—). The hyphen is used to join two words (e.g. “custom-built”); an en dash is used to connect numerical values (e.g. “1984–1998”); and an em dash is the length of an ‘M’ and is occasionally used within sentences to stand in for a comma (e.g. “Grammar is hard — or so I once thought”)

17. Don’t Use Too Many EffectsWhen it comes to communicative designs, a lot of the time, simple is best, and this can mean repetitively asking yourself “I know I can add this to my design, but should I?” Effects like drop shadows, bevelling, textures and gradients all have their time and place, just not always together.

A common situation where a lot of effects are often used is charts and graphs. Have a look at this graphic that shows a bar graph with a lot loaded into it, a lot of effects, a lot of elements, it’s a lot to take in. The graph to the right, however, shows how taking effects and some elements away from the design declutters the informa-tion and makes for a much easier read and aesthetically pleasing design.

While there are some instances where there are certain labels, values or elements that you can’t take out, taking out as much as you can without compromising the com-munication can refocus your information. Sometimes, less really is more.

To cap this list off, let me just say that in the end, there is only one final rule: there are no rules. As important as it is to learn the fundamentals of design, it is even more important to challenge them every once in a while.