Dear Before & After
Black & white . . . so many times I need to do a small newsletter or menu on a laser printer. Could you give some tips on how to make pages look good in one color? — Jeremy

Dear Jeremy,
Since adding the PDF format, the references to black & white artwork have been reduced. Before & After’s John McWade started desktop publishing the year the first laser printers became available. For five years, black & white was all we saw for our page designs. Several back-issue articles jump to mind as potential additions to your resource library. Issue 35’s DesignTalk has a two-page spread dedicated to black & white design that can be photocopied. Issues 33 and 15 each have an article focusing on creation of black & white advertising. Both have layout ideas where the use of screens and contrast are explained and illustrated. A perennial favorite article is Issue 26’s “How to design a Yellow Page ad.” While the Yellow Pages have a reduced audience, this article is a must-have for designing your one-color work, small-space or Web-page ads, fliers and business cards. Issue 23 contains “Fax the news,” a two-page redesign project focusing on grabbing readers’ attention in one color through a faxed page with a “clear” message. One final suggestion, Issue 18’s flier article has multiple layout ideas for hot-off-the-printer pages ready for the bulletin boards throughout the company.

Dear Before & After
Issue 21’s “What typefaces are best for text?” is the one I refer to the most. Do you have more stories that analyze and recommend fonts? — Val

Dear Val,
We love that article too. Many of our back-issue articles focus on type and the voice your choices convey to your reader. Almost every PDF has multiple typefaces listed on the resource pages, so you’ll know what fonts were used to produce our graphics and text. Issue 32 has a beautiful center spread titled “Frutiger is crystal clear.” (Get out some thumb tacks; you might end up with it as a poster on your wall.) Another of our most well-received articles in the series “Type, the visible voice” was on page 2 of Issue 23. The typeface is Interstate, and it represents the one used on federal roadway signage. Before & After’s publisher, John McWade, makes no secret of his love of typography. While the analysis is time consuming, and there are hundreds of books filled with chapters of long descriptions, John prefers that each article illustrate examples of typeface suggestions and usage. Issue 11 has page 12’s “Typeface Classification” facing page 13’s “Typeface Combinations” for advice and analysis of choosing text faces for your own type library. Then check out Issue 13’s “How to design a wordmark” and Issue 27’s “Discover the logo in your name.” We could go on and on; there are so many articles that jumped out as we pulled issues off the shelf and flipped through. An all-print-issues package is available, and, of course, the Before & After books are compilations of those print issues too.

Dear Before & After,
Do you have any issues on how to design a photographic catalog selling albums, frames, holiday cards and images? — Thom

Dear Thom,
You’ve no doubt seen that Article 0661 addresses catalog design. We have a five-page article in print Issue 25 and also in our book, Before & After Page Design (page 122) titled “Create dramatic photo layouts for your products.” The article’s products are postcards and greeting cards. Oh, and they’re of cool fighter jets and helicopters! Not to worry though; right in the article a great caption from John McWade reassures, “You don’t sell helicopters? Neither do we, but the principles behind this design — a unifying grid, a single type family — and visual details like overlapping photos can be applied to any layout.” This is where Before & After print issues become a resource you’ll return to again and again. Our creative department works hard to create and choose design applicable to your pages, Web and print.

Dear Before & After,
Do you have an article devoted to designing forms? — Mike

Dear Mike,
Print Issue 22 and our book Before & After Page Design (page 184) both contain the article “How to improve every form you make.” This article maps out vital steps for designing your forms. It's a great article; maybe our creative team can expand it as a starting point for a new one on Web forms or PDF form design.

Dear Before & After: In looking through our local small-town newspaper, it occurred to me that they're in serious need of a good ad designer. Having worked for a newspaper right out of college, though, I understand that most small businesses tend to have a whole different idea about their regular weekly ad. They all want their logo big and obnoxious at the top and skip the headline! How about an article about effective newspaper advertising in good old fashioned black & white? — Katie F.

Dear Katie,
Thank you for your suggestion. Issue 26 (a print issue) has a great article about Yellow Pages advertising — four pages of small ad design in one color or two. They seem a thing of the past, but the article is recommended reading for anyone who has small space ads to create, black & white or color.

Dear Before & After
I do a lot of business writing and wonder if you have articles that show ways of laying out instructions and text without the benefit of pictures — ways of inviting readers into an 8-1/2" x 11" page, with only Arial and Times New Roman. — Daryl

Dear Daryl,
Several responses come to mind. First, Article 0669 Callout ideas, addresses your inquiry with suggestions for attracting readers into text-filled pages using quotes from your pages. Second, a recurring theme throughout Before & After’s articles is the use of the white space. Any page, whether paper or Web, can be beautiful through the designer’s use of text and surrounding space. Add your software’s amazing ability to change the size, color and spacing of the text, and your pages become artwork. Third, the back-issue articles we recommend for ways to use your typefaces for organization, emphasis and guiding your reader through your pages are the following: Issue 14’s Make an easy-to-read data sheet; 0615 Design a small chart; Issue 9’s How to typeset an interview; and 0643 Design Talk 7’s second idea, Differences establish hierarchy. One final observation: John McWade called Times Roman “A navy blue blazer, always appropriate,” in Issue 21’s What typefaces are best for text? And then on page 3 of What’s the right typeface for text — Times New Roman is the example font in the article’s first recommendation: “Pick a typeface with similar character widths.”