Question for people who are into publishing...

[bleedingheart]

I am working on a newsletter. The woman I work with insists on "mixing it up"...and by that she mixes up the fonts in the paper. Hell even the same paragraph will have three different fonts..."to keep it jazzy"...

It makes me nauseous to edit this mess and I have told her that a better format is something people can read.

So what is your opinion?

[Call Me Wesley]

1. I think

The woman you work with
is absolutely right!
It's soooo jazzy!

:puke:

[bleedingheart]

5. she would have italicized the last line...

shudder...

[Rabrrrrrr]

15. No, the first line was italics. She would have bold italics that last line

and probably centered it and underlined it as well.

[we can do it]

26. What No Outlines, Underlines or Drop Shadows?

[displacedtexan]

2. The woman you work with is an idiot and distinctly...

unprofessional.

Don't put your name on anything "cutesy."

And send her this in an anonymous review of her newsletter:

cutesy

SYLLABICATION: cute·sy
PRONUNCIATION: kyts
ADJECTIVE: Inflected forms: cute·si·er, cute·si·est
Informal Deliberately or affectedly cute; precious: a cutesy boutique for children's fashions.
OTHER FORMS: cutesi·ness —NOUN

[Fleshdancer]

3. Jazz is for the ears, not the eyes.

The idea of reading several different fonts in a single paragraph gives me a headache.

[WritingIsMyReligion]

21. My line exactly.

:D :D

[eyesroll]

4. Ick. Yuck.

ONE body font per story. TWO body fonts per page, max.

[bleedingheart]

6. I am only a volunteer and my background is not in publishing

or editing but I just know this is wrong and it comes across and unprofessional. I am glad to hear that my gut instinct wasn't wrong.

[Omphaloskepsis]

7. Do it all in Comic Sans.

[Sequoia]

8. NO. MIXING. FONTS !!!

Seriously. People will NOT read that publication in you mix fonts in the same story. It will look junky, unorganized, and trashy.

[EstimatedProphet]

9. Sounds lousy

The point of publishing something is to get information across. If you are doing something that makes it harder to get that information across, then you are getting in your own way.

YoU mIgHt As WeLl TyPe ThIs WaY. iT gEtS aNnOyInG.

[khashka]

10. She's a dingbat!

You can do it as a joke, once in a while, but people like to be able to read things comfortably. It's one of the reasons people hate it when others POST IN ALL CAPS!

When I did web design it was a constant problem - people would want business sites with music, weird fonts, every idiotic bell and whistle they could come up with. No - simplicity and elegance are the way to go. Lost a lot of business insisting on that.

Khash.

[LynzM]

31. Khash, if I ever need a web page built...

You're the guy I want to hire. On the money, man.

[Midlodemocrat]

11. She's a dingbat.

When publishing anything with information that you want READ, you need to use a serif font, like Times New Roman. Otherwise, people won't read it if it is copy heavy. Too hard on the eyes.

Headlines can be as jazzy as she wants, but not the body of the article.

[democracyindanger]

12. Is she wearing a sequin-encrusted hat

that she made herself with felt and a glue gun? On her desk are there homemade photo frames decorated with buttons and seashells?

[Maddy McCall]

13. NO. That's what kids who are new to Word fonts do.

Definitely NOT in a professional or organizational newsletter.

Maybe on a birthday or party invitation, but NOT in a newsletter.

[Rabrrrrrr]

14. Absolutely not. That is VERY BAD design.

It's obnoxious to read, and pretty much no one is going to think "Oh, isn't that exciting!" while they're reading it, they'll be saying, "Why can't she stick to one goddamn font?!?!?!"

No more than three fonts on one newsletter page - one for titles, one for text, and one for any text inserts (such as a quote box, etc.). Advertisements can have whatever they need to have, but in terms of actual content, no more than three fonts.

Her design is the kind of whistle-ass idiocy that drives me crazy.


And while I'm on a rant, anyone who publishes content text in a sans serif font is a clueless dipshit who doesn't understand the process of reading, and should get out of publishing.

[Maddy McCall]

17. Hey...off topic.

Our discussion on aquarium backgrounds motivated me to find a way to hide my cords. I'll send you a PM when I post a pic thread on it. I think you'll like it...it was easy and cheap, and it looks great.

:hi:

[Midlodemocrat]

19. You echoed what I said above you about serif fonts.

:thumbsup:

[fishwax]

23. unless they have in mind a european audience

re: sans serif fonts in content.

[Boojatta]

16. One possibility

The woman you work with might be mixed up (fontwise).

[ghostsofgiants]

18. Different fonts in the same paragraph?

Is she high?

[Book Lover]

20. No. No! NO!

Give me her phone number so I can yell at her directly. NO MIXING FONTS!!!

[WritingIsMyReligion]

22. Oh fuck, NO!

:scared:

[begin_within]

24. No more than 2 fonts on any one page

[we can do it]

25. One Word - AMATEUR

:puke:

[bleedingheart]

27. Update!

I have convinced my buddy that it is best to stick to one font!

I am sure she will wince at the "sterility" of the document but it will be better for the readers.

Overall she is a very talented and very good volunteer for our little group and a great person but her talents are more in the content (she is good at placing articles that will catch people's interest) and better at editing content than picking a font or format. I was brought into this whole thing for my computer skills and don't want to rock the boat too much, but I knew that something was wrong.

[Rabrrrrrr]

28. Woo hoo!

Did you show her this thread?

[bleedingheart]

30. no...

she is nice and I don't want to make her upset...

[eek]

33. find some examples of good, bad and mediocre newsletters

and discuss with her what looks most engaging and why.

Grab the daily stack of junk mail and discuss which ones look the most professional.

Lastly, discuss what your newsletter is meant to accomplish. Is it instructive? Funny? etcetc.
The design should reinforce your mission.



Man - it reminds me of my former career. Onefrequent task was doing the weekly ads for various trade/ promo magazines.

The promo reps always wanted Kitchen Sink ads because "that's whateveryone else did" in these publications (looked jazzy, i guess).
I'd often try to go veerry minimal - lots of breathing room for the various elements because it'd stand out against the morass .

It was a matter of dealing with people that don't trust their eye. They often can be gently edumacated.
You both sound like you've got good intentions.



The felt sequinned hat wisecrack kills.

edit: added one more blowhard remark

[KitchenWitch]

29. Cardinal Design Rule

Never more than two fonts on page, one serif and one sans serif.

Unless there is a very specific reason.

Newsletters are about readability, and messing with fonts like that makes things less readable.

[RebelOne]

32. It's OK to use different fonts in the heads and subheads,

but not in the body copy, other than bold and italic type. I copy-edit 10 magazines a month, so I have a little knowledge.