How do they do it? Max characters in a document template.

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    • #84573
      RWVVV
      Member

      Now I wonder if anyone could shed some light on the following:

      At a newspaper, layouts are made on a daily basis. Stories will not be as long the one day as they were the other. So they have a ‘budget’. How much space to write in, or place pictures, it’s all pretty much pre determined and they have the daily puzzle that needs to fit together. I wonder how they do it.

      Now here’s my case: my organisation is putting out a handful of leaflets, all with the same template, but with different stories. Text is all aligned nicely to a basline grid. Space is scarce on these things and I would like to avoid getting docs from my colleagues that either result in overset text or not filling the page out nicely. I want to present them an ideal character budget.

      I’m trying to figure out the ideal way to calculate this. Some things make it difficult:

      -text is justified, meaning space between words is not consistent. I can not calculate a space as being as wide as a character.
      -a heading style ignores the baseline grid, so this heading budget influences the body text budget in odd ways.
      -one heading style works great on one line, but on two lines, it creates a sort of space after (or rather a space before for the body paragraph).

      So is there a good way to come up with a budget, or do even newspapers in fact have to do with the cumbersome process of editing minor parts of text to get the snug fit on everything?

    • #84612
      Sam Sharpe
      Member

      Hi RMVVV,

      I’m not sure why my earlier reply did not show up? Maybe it was the link to the book I suggest reading in this regard. It’s by Josef Mülller-Brockmann and I’ll try again with a link to the publisher in a folowing post. Appologies if you’ve read it as a student, it should be a vital component of any reading list on a course in visual communication – it explains many techniques to achieve what you want to do.

      By justified type I assume you mean in blocks rather than set ragged (I much prefer ragged set type for legibility). For examples of terrible type setting take a look at any UK tabloid paper such as the sun, for more considered examples I suggest London Review of Books, Japanese and Hangul typsetting is incredible in this regard but very much is a result of the character forms. Arabic can be used very sophistically when setting type justified due to the way characters are written with the same number of letter forms as Latin type but with up to three different letterforms depending where they are in the copy. Latin type in my opinion benefits from ragged setting in long form for legibility and aesthetic purposes, depending on the typeface in which it is set.

      Treat this as an interesting design problem to solve and I’m sure you will achieve an interesting solution.

      I hope this is of use.
      Cheers, Sam

    • #84613
      Sam Sharpe
      Member

      Here’s a link to the publisher, if you don’t own this book I really do reccomend it, and I don’t make any money from this link!

      https://www.niggli.ch/en/grid-systems-in-graphic-design.html

      Sam

    • #84582
      Sam Sharpe
      Member

      Hello RWVVV, I recommend this book if you do not know it and to design layouts using some of the techniques. https://www.amazon.co.uk/Grid-Systems-Graphic-Design-Communication/dp/3721201450 If you have an idea of the maximum headline and body copy then possibly work backwards from this and try to design with ideal and compromised scenarios.

      Cheers,
      Sam

    • #84620
      RWVVV
      Member

      Thanks for this recommendation, I will consider it!

    • #84631
      Kelly Vaughn
      Participant
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