Layout

Print designers develop a vital appreciation for form and space. This allows them to create balanced or dynamic layouts depending on the mood of the communication. Balance gives a feeling of authority, solidity and permanence where dynamism suggests modernism and progressiveness.

A page layout is very like an abstract painting. It has solid areas, spaces, textures and colours that combine to create these feelings of harmony or tension. Where dynamism is a positive attribute, an untidy or haphazard layout that doesn’t quite hold together can suggest instability. All this happens the instant you look at a page and before you read a word. First impressions… and all that!

Creative page layout is definitely an art.

Colour

Then there’s the colour scheme. The use of colour is more than just for superficial, decorative reasons. The tone and juxtaposition of various hues, shades and tints also create evocative undertones that make the viewer more receptive to the message.

Everybody is familiar with the concepts of red = hot and blue = cold. Those are instinctive associations that we adopt at a very early age. The effects of other, more complex colour combinations, require a great deal of study. There's no substitute for mixing real paint or inks when exploring the language of colour – more beneficial than dabbling with a graphics program on a computer.

As with layouts, a designer who is in control of colour can work wonders. Bad use of colour is like music that’s out of tune – it puts people off even when they are not actually conscious of the fact.

So, you can add a bit of psychology to the ‘art’.