Whether you work regularly with a designer or design your own material in-house you can use some of these guidelines to produce a leaflet that is easier to read and visually appealing.
Use good quality paper
There are many different types of paper used for printing and each one reacts differently to ink. The best quality paper to use is a ‘coated’ paper. Because of its surface, it takes ink extremely well and therefore improves legibility. Coated paper can have either a gloss, silk or matt finish. It is used for most magazines and leaflets.
Watch out for shadowing
Make sure your paper is heavy enough to avoid ‘shadowing’, which happens when images or text on one side of a page can be seen through the paper. This makes reading difficult. Using a heavier or thicker paper will help you overcome this problem.
Ask your printer or paper supplier for advice as some paper is more transparent than others.
White is best
White is the best paper colour to use to maximise legibility.
However a light coloured paper or a solid printed background colour can be used in an effort to make a publication more colourful. For best results heighten the contrast between the text and background. For instance this text is a dark blue printed on a background of cream.
When using light coloured text on a dark background make sure to use a bold font. This helps prevent the problem of ink filling in parts of the letter. This most often happens with a serif typeface.
Chose a readable typeface
Most people using PCs have access to a wide range of typefaces. A serif typeface makes large bodies of text easier to read as it leads your eye from letter to letter. This document uses the serif font Times Roman. A sans serif typeface is good for titles because it draws your eye down into the body of the text
Use a minimum of 12 point
12 point (pt) text is a good size for legibility. For emphasis, capital letters or uppercase letters can be used but don’t overdo it. Mixing upper and lower case is easier to read than upper case only. A lot of road-signs use this mixture.
Watching your leading
Leading or line-spacing refers to the amount of white space between each line of text. Too little and the reader will drop lines. Too much and the reader will be unsure as to whether the lines refer to each other. If text is set at 12 pt we recommend a minimum of 2pt of space between each line be used, giving a minimum leading of 14pt.
Almost all typefaces can be categorised into two basic kinds of typeface – Serif and Sans Serif
The Serif typeface is distinguished by a short stroke that projects from the end of the letter.
The other major group of typefaces is the Sans Serif, from the French work, sans, meaning without.
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