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Reporting Script - Eng 146

Layout is the arrangement of text, images, and graphics on a page. It involves choosing font styles, sizes, and colors. There are no set rules for layout, allowing experimentation. Good layout gives prominence to important news, makes pages attractive, gives a publication personality, and makes content easy to find. Qualities of good layout include proportion, unity, balance, emphasis, and contrast. Proportion assigns importance by size, unity creates harmony, balance creates equilibrium, emphasis differentiates importance, and contrast blends units while distinguishing adjacent elements. The document encourages freeing the creative mind for innovative newspaper layouts.

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ANGELA MAY GAMUTAN
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28 views

Reporting Script - Eng 146

Layout is the arrangement of text, images, and graphics on a page. It involves choosing font styles, sizes, and colors. There are no set rules for layout, allowing experimentation. Good layout gives prominence to important news, makes pages attractive, gives a publication personality, and makes content easy to find. Qualities of good layout include proportion, unity, balance, emphasis, and contrast. Proportion assigns importance by size, unity creates harmony, balance creates equilibrium, emphasis differentiates importance, and contrast blends units while distinguishing adjacent elements. The document encourages freeing the creative mind for innovative newspaper layouts.

Uploaded by

ANGELA MAY GAMUTAN
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
Available Formats
Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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Layout Defined

Layout is the make-up or the window dressing of a page. It consists the arrangement of illustrations, texts
and graphics on a page which is to be printed including the selection of font styles, sizes and colors.
Laying out a page is a matter of personal taste. There are no criteria set for it. Therefore, the staff may
experiment freely on page makeup until they get the pattern acceptable to them.

Layout does so much good to a newspaper because it gives prominence to the news in proportion to its
importance; it makes the pages appear attractive; it gives the paper a personality/individuality of its own;
and it makes the different contents easy to find and read.

Qualities of a Good Layout


 
1. Proportion – refers to assigning importance to elements by increasing or decreasing the size of an
element, while keeping it in balance with other elements in the document. The easiest way to think about
it is to make the most important items on your page the biggest, and the less important items smaller. We
can also think of it in terms of scale – in other words, the size of our elements and their relationship to
each other. We can scale an image or text up or down as needed to catch our reader’s attention.
Explanation: For example, in this image, what items stand out the most? The most likely went to
the scooter first, as it's the largest object in our field of view, and then likely to the office building
in the background. Another way to think about this is if we're looking out a window — our eyes
are immediately drawn to the largest, most exciting object in our field of vision, and then to the
smaller objects that may be visible. We can use this to our advantage in our layouts by changing
the proportion, or size, of our page elements.
2. Unity (Harmony) - the agreement between parts. The content of every page/double page must blend as
a harmonious unit. No one part of the page should overshadow another. The headlines should
complement each other and the pictures should not distract the eyes too much from the type.

3. Balance – a feeling of equality in weight; suggests the gravitational equilibrium of a single unit or a
space arranged with respect to an axis or a fulcrum.
a. Occult balance/asymmetrical balance = “felt” balance. Visual units in the other side of
the axis are not identical but are placed in positions so equated to produce a felt
equilibrium.
4. Emphasis – gives proper importance to the parts and to the whole. It involves the differentiation
between the more important and the less important. Example: News/articles must be displayed according
to importance. The news value of every story must determine to what page it should find print, its position
on the page, and the style and size of its headline.
5. Contrast – is the blending of units as one. Every head and cut on a page should contrast with adjoining
materials. Contrasting adjacent headlines will help emphasize the importance of each other. Boxes and
pictures between heads are sometimes good makeup devices.

 
Synthesis
 
            Lay-outing is a skill as important as any journalism skill. It can be learned better through
practice. Knowledge of design principles in laying out a page goes a long way because, in any pieces of
written work you may engage in the future, you know how to present them creatively. The best newspaper
in the world has never been laid out yet nor has the best issue of The Harrow. I, therefore, challenge you
to break the limits you imposed on yourselves and set free your creative mind. Only when the mind is free
that campus press freedom is best felt, eventually, building a bridge that links to the right information is
not a burden at all

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