January/February 1998

How to get your message across with type and clip art

Every new word processing or layout program today comes complete with a plethora of fonts and clip art. Not only that, but as each software upgrade is released, we are wowed with even more choices. If that isn't enough, the prices of fonts and clip art are now so affordable, we are left with no more excuses to go with the same layout standard we had even a year ago.

Close, closer, closest...

Before you push up your sleeves to produce another newsletter or flyer, take a look at the steps and elements you use in each issue.

First, there's the newsletter masthead, a title in a certain font and possibly a graphic next to it. It's typical to think of each element as separate, because we usually place them individually.

Why not bring these two together, let them overlap or occupy the same space, or stack them? The techniques of "togetherness" can be a graphic that overlaps type, a graphic placed behind a letter or word, or even a graphic instead of a letter (See Figure 1).

Some of these effects can be done in a basic word processing program, and some require a draw program that's designed for such effects.

A draw program, though it may sound intimidating to some, can actually achieve these effects more easily and quickly than word processing programs. Not to mention that the results produce a professional look without the cost of professional design.

Now you're on a roll...

Let's not stop at just the masthead, let's look at some of the other elements we routinely add to our copy.

The drop or raised cap is a technique we learned in WordPerfect years ago. The principle is still good, adding a design element to jazz up the copy, but the technique has evolved. How about taking a simple graphic, and adding it to the background of a letter? Again, this will probably mean you will have to invest in a draw program, but it will open up a new world of design possibilities for you.

If you're announcing master gardener classes in an article, take a leaf or vine graphic, screen it, and put it behind the first initial capital letter in the paragraph (See Figure 2). Remember, this marriage of type and graphics will just draw the reader that much more into your story.

Next, the heading. Most headings introduce a new subject matter and more copy. Why not use a graphic with the heading to make the idea of another story more inviting and fun? Fun is good and most of us need and appreciate a little levity in our lives (See Figure 3).

If it doesn't need fixing, break it!

If you make any New Year's resolutions for work, make this one. "Don't do anything the same with your newsletter as you did last year." Some suggestions on ways to change your newsletter:

• Change your column formats and the justification.
• Pick a different font for the body copy and heads. Just make sure the fonts you use for each are different and that they contrast with each other. Don't use Times Roman or CG Times anymore.
• Change your drop caps and add pizzazz to them with a background graphic.
• If you use bullets in your copy, change the bullet and size. Here are just a few of the many bullets and icons included in WordPerfect's character set 5.
• Change the length -- go from six pages to four, or vice versa.
• Change your ink or paper color.
• Make your newsletter more interactive. Add a monthly contest or trivia question and offer a prize to the first reader who calls in. Give away a set of fact sheets on food preservation or pruning trees and shrubs.
• Keep a log of questions that were called into your office for a month and publish 10 of them with the answers. Show yourself off!

Change is good

The biggest challenge for most newsletter production is to think of a more creative way to use clip art. Don't use it to plug up a white space or plop it in a paragraph with a traditional text wrap.

Be creative with it. For example, if you want to use a clover in your newsletter title or copy, attach it to something. Put it behind the copy or bring it right up next to and touching the title copy.

These changes might seem drastic the closer you are to your newsletter, but look how much your newsletter has changed in just the last five years. At least it should have changed!

The ability to change is within all of us. We just have to pull it out even when we feel the least comfortable doing it.

~ Debby Weitzel, OCTnews, December 1997.
Cooperative Extension, Colorado State University.

CIT Information is published by Communications and Information Technology - Computing section, Institute of Agriculture and Natural Resources, University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Newsletter articles may be copied and distributed for nonprofit, educational purposes only and the source must be acknowledged. Direct all correspondence to the editor, Pamela K. Peters (E-mail: pkpeters@unlnotes.unl.edu; Phone: 402/472-5630; FAX: 402/472-5639).

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