Design and production

By Chris Nutt, Founder of InvestorComs

My first job after university was at the Nottingham Evening Post. Desktop publishing was beginning to transform the newspaper industry, but there was still a room where people physically assembled pages using strips of typeset text, positioning them on boards and holding them in place with hot wax.

I started using QuarkXPress, which dominated professional page layout for years before Adobe InDesign took over. Along the way, I’ve seen huge changes in how we produce newspapers, magazines, brochures and other marketing materials.

In the past, producing a publication involved specialist typesetters, artworkers, reprographic technicians and printers, each with their own expertise. Today, much of that work can be done using a handful of software applications.

The process is faster and more accessible, but there’s a risk that some of the technical knowledge once passed down through production departments is being lost. Software gives almost anyone the tools to create a layout, but producing something that looks professional still requires an understanding of the principles behind it.

What goes on behind the scenes?

Producing professional marketing materials involves more than creating an attractive layout. For print, designers need to consider how colours and images will reproduce on different paper stocks, allow for trimming and make sure the artwork meets the printer’s technical requirements. Even the combined amount of ink used to create a colour, known as total ink coverage, can affect the finished result.

Some problems only become apparent when something is printed. Very fine lines can disappear, while small white lettering on dark backgrounds, known as reversed-out type, can become difficult to read. Paper choice, folding and binding also need to be considered before a design is finalised.

It’s worth involving your printer early. They can advise on whether a design will reproduce well, recommend suitable paper stocks and suggest finishing options you may not have considered, such as protective coatings to reduce scuffing or laminates that help prevent visible fingerprints. For an important publication, ask to see paper samples or a physical proof, and allow enough time for printing and finishing.

Ten practical tips for more professional marketing materials

You don’t need to be a designer to improve the quality of your marketing materials. Here are ten things worth remembering when preparing content, creating your own documents or working with designers.

1. Supply the best-quality images available. For printing, photographs should ideally be around 300 pixels per inch (ppi) at their final size. Enlarging an image reduces its effective resolution, so a photograph that looks sharp at postcard size might look blurry across a double-page spread. Send original photographs and vector logos, which can be enlarged without losing sharpness, rather than images copied from websites, emails or PowerPoint.

2. Be imaginative with picture research. Look beyond the first page of stock photography results. Think about colour, composition and how an image relates to the subject. Avoid familiar financial services clichés such as chess pieces for strategy or jigsaws for planning. Check that you have the appropriate licence to use the image.

3. Understand CMYK and RGB colours. Screens use red, green and blue light (RGB), while conventional printing uses cyan, magenta, yellow and black inks (CMYK). Some bright colours that look great on screen can’t be reproduced in print, so don’t expect an exact match. Paper also affects the result, with colours generally appearing more vibrant on coated than uncoated stock.

4. Keep your layouts simple. If you’re producing something in Word or PowerPoint, try limiting yourself to two or three type sizes and a small selection of colours. Use consistent margins, spacing and alignment. Leave some white space rather than feeling you have to fill every corner of the page.

5. Watch your line lengths. Long lines of text can be tiring to read because the eye has further to travel before finding the beginning of the next line. Around 50 to 75 characters per line, including spaces, is a useful rule of thumb for body text. If a paragraph stretches right across a landscape slide, consider narrowing the text area or using columns.

6. Avoid justifying text. Justified text has straight edges on both sides of a paragraph, but it can leave large, uneven gaps between words. Professional typesetters adjust word spacing and hyphenation to keep the text balanced. For most documents created in Word or PowerPoint, left-aligned text is the safer choice.

7. Pay attention to typesetting details. Use one space after a full stop, as double spaces are a hangover from typewriters. Use proper typographic quotation marks and apostrophes rather than straight ones where possible. Keep formatting consistent, particularly for dates, percentages and currencies.

8. Watch awkward line breaks. Avoid headings with a single word stranded on the last line and paragraphs ending with a very short line. In typesetting, a widow is a final line stranded at the top of a page or column, while an orphan is a first line left at the bottom. Keep headings with the paragraphs they introduce.

9. Don’t make everything stand out. If every heading is bold, every box is coloured and every important sentence is highlighted, nothing stands out. Decide what readers should notice first, second and third, and use the design to guide their attention. Use capital letters sparingly, particularly for longer headings and passages of text, as they can make reading harder.

10. Make charts easy to understand. Remove unnecessary gridlines, 3D effects and excessive labels. Use scales that don’t exaggerate movements, and avoid relying entirely on colour to distinguish information, as some readers may struggle to tell different shades apart. For financial charts, check that dates, units and percentages are clearly labelled and consistently formatted.

Good production is worth understanding

Many tasks that once required specialist equipment and considerable technical knowledge can now be completed in a few clicks. That’s an enormous improvement. But the underlying principles still matter. Understanding a little about printing, typography, colour and imagery can help marketing teams prepare better briefs, avoid common mistakes and have more productive conversations with designers and suppliers.

Often, it’s the small details that make marketing materials look and feel genuinely professional.

Need help with your next publication?

At InvestorComs, we bring together writing, design and production expertise to create brochures, reports, presentations and other marketing materials for financial services firms. If you’re planning a new project or want to improve an existing publication, get in touch to see how we can help.