October 2014 - Video Tutorial -Typography: Part 2 of Page Layout

[Barbara B]

Typography Part Two of Page Layout October 2014



This month Gary shows you how to design using type as creatively as putting pictures together. From the ongoing "Page Layout Series" on Xara Xone.com, this video is bound to spark some ideas and more clever designs of things everyone reads.

See how it is done and then show us your take on fabulous type-centric layout.

An you also might want to revisit Part One of this series, the tutorial on Xaraxone.com and the discussion for it here on Talkgraphics.

[mwenz]

Hey, Thanks Gary & Barbara!

The PDF only has page 2. Though I did change the couple fonts on the ice cream page. And though I have Benguiat, I used something else for the body copy.

[Boy]

Thanks Gare, great tutorial showing the various approaches you can take to realizing the layout. I also watched part 1 again and enjoyed that one as well.

[Gare]

Thank you, Boy. I think we need more of this stuff because I had to skip over a lot of the finer points of typography and layout. And still the sucker came in at 14 minutes! I was aiming for 6, my bad...

Mike, you did terrific. I love the unequal column—I should have mentioned that two uneven columns helps ward off the dreaded, trite, and boring "tombstone" effect. Your page color is good (I'll cover this at another time), there are no rivers I really can see (I'll cover that too, I did just a little by expanding the character spacing. Nice dividers, that's something we should get into for separating paragraphs.

By the way, if you'd like a free font that only has dividers, Fonts that have pictures of text dividers at FontSpace. I cannot vouch for the site, but I did a quick search and no one bought up piracy so I guess they are cool. I looked around and didn't see any commercial fonts I recognize.

Mike, my only question to you is why you chose such a cold, authoritarian typeface for the headline, although the call to make it in color was a good one. Republika from FontYou might just be a little too serious...I chose Benguiat because it's quirky yet legible, in the same tone as the text article, which is strange but interesting. You must have strange but interesting fonts that don't go over the top.

Can you share why you did what you did overall, and share?

Me, I give your layout a 91 out of 100. I like the innovations, the riffs on execution I explained, and I know you are already a pro at page layout so that's for demonstrating the power of text in a page layout.

My Best,

Gary

[mwenz]

Hah...didn't catch the even page number on a right-hand page, did ya! Right after I uploaded I saw it. Fixed it but by the time I actually came back I couldn't edit it. But, that's why there are editors.

Respublika. I like the font. I recently used it for the heads/sub-heads in a directory in two weights. I was originally going to use Antique Olive LT Bold Condensed, which I also recently used on something (size not adjusted for the space):



Point is, I wanted the head to be a sans. I like Benguiat, but like Optima and Antique Olive, I used those fonts for a company from 1989 through 2002.

Unequal columns. As the lead page for the article, it simply provides a bit of interest. Causes the eye to slow down to see why.

Quote block. Quotes like this are great for adding white-space to otherwise dense text. The dividers were chosen over rules because...well, I had already added the double-tapered line for separating the footer. The actual divider was chosen based upon mimicking the flower in the dropcap.

Lead-in paragraph. One method of "connecting" the first line of text following a dropcap of any style is to make the type larger and if the drop is also colored, use the same color. I think this is especially true of drops that have other visual interest (the flower) as it grounds the two "permanently" together in the mind.

Rivers. Those were a little more difficult to deal with. Tracking in XDP is coarse but is needed as a first step. But getting it tight enough caused kerning issues, so the kerning was dealt with after a happy medium was obtained with tracking. I then loosened up some of the letter pairs using the kerning. (So here's where I implore Xara to make tracking/kerning in single-step increments and perhaps add the ctrl modifier key for making it jump in 10s.)

Colors. Obviously I too the color from the provided image and used it for the dropcap and lead line of text following it, the quote and footer. The red-orange is roughly a compliment (OK, it is off but interesting) and with its close proximity to the blue-gray of the "M" of the dropcap, stands out in the flower detail.

Time for lunch...

[Rik]

Great tutorial, Gary.

I thought I would try and take in your instructions and see how things work out.

I did my best to put together a page (layout).

I went for fully justify, for all the body text on the page.
Whether that's a good idea, or not, I'll let experts, such as yourself, advise on that.

[Boy]

Thank you, Boy. I think we need more of this stuff because I had to skip over a lot of the finer points of typography and layout. And still the sucker came in at 14 minutes! I was aiming for 6, my bad...

Yes, keep them coming. Love layout and typography. The 14 minutes are not a problem at all because your videos are fast paced and instructional. Sometimes they even go a bit too fast. Looking forward to Parts 3 to 10!

[stygg2003]

Here's my first attempt, worked on another, not to clear the first one so uploaded a second, png. this time.

Stygg

[RichardPM]

Tried this but Right click on the imported text, Columns remains stubbornly greyed out.
Mind you, have had a lot of problems with X9.

[Gare]

Welcome to the Xara Xone area of TalkGraphics, Richard, and I’m sorry your first post was about something going wrong so you couldn’t follow the video tutorial.

I think fortunately, I know what the problem is. Version 9 sees the RTF file as column text, and not “area” text (Xara’s nomenclature), so this messes up the tutorial but here’s a quick fix:

First of all, text comes in three different types depending on the way you enter it. If you just click and insertion point on the page and type, this is called “Simple Text Lines”, which to me equals “headline fonts”. If you click and drag perfectly horizontally, and then type, this is called “Column text”. Now wait: you’re creating column text aren’t you in this example? Well, yes and no, and I think Xara should change the name of this sort of text if it’s going to offer auto-columns out of the third type of text. When toy marquee drag, you’ve created an “Area Text” box, which normal, well-adjusted graphics professionals (!) usually call a “Paragraph Text Box”.

Follow these steps to make the right-click “Columns” entry work:

1. With the Text tool, marquee-drag an area text placeholder green outline box, you’ll use later.

2. Import the RTF text. Regardless of whether you use the Selector tool or the Text tool, the imported text will land on the center of the page, something TPTB really need to work on, IMO. Now my RTF text is indeed paragraph (Area) text, but version 9 doesn’t see it that way; it sees it as column text, and you can only use the Columns command with area text.

3. You place the Text too cursor inside the imported text, press Ctrl+A to select all, and thebn Ctrl+X to cut all the imported text.

4. You place your cursor at the top left of the green outline Area Text empty box, zooming in will ensure you’re inside and not outside the box, click the insertion point, and then Ctrl+P to paste.

Chances are good you’ll have dimmed out overflow text at the bottom of the area box, but you know how to fix that, and in this instance, it’s irrelevant right now. Now…you right-click the Text tool cursor inside the box and “Columns” is an available command.

Do something great with this knowledge and post it here, eh?




Kind Regards,

Gary