The key to good document design is clarity and readability. Your document is the delivery device for your message, so the goal is to produce an uncluttered, visually appealing document your audience can read and navigate easily.
This post explains how you can use layout, formatting, colour, and more to create professional, stylish documents that not only give your audience a clear reading experience but look great too.
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Why is good design important?
Good design is important because it influences how much time your audience invests in reading your document. It not only captures their attention but also helps them understand your content and identify key messages. Given that people tend to skim through pages, a well-designed document helps them find the information they want quickly and easily.
Document design often goes unnoticed because the reader is usually more interested in the content. Nevertheless, people do notice bad document design which is characterised by inconsistent layout, haphazard formatting, and cluttered pages.
A poorly designed document diminishes your credibility and personal brand. After all, if you don’t care enough to present your content in the best possible manner, why should your audience feel compelled to read it?
What are the main elements of page design?
- Layout – also known as page design – refers to page structure and how text and graphics are arranged on the page. This structure includes characteristics such as page size and orientation (portrait or landscape), margins, columns, and header, footer, and page number placement.
- Fonts – also known as typefaces – are collections of text characters that can appear on a screen or printed on pages. A font is typically part of a font family where the same character set is available in different weights (e.g., regular, medium, bold) and styles (e.g., italic, condensed, expanded). Some common fonts you’re probably familiar with are Times New Roman and Arial. Every time you see text in any form, you are seeing a font.
- Text formatting is the most important element in any document because it’s what your audience reads. The way your text looks – its formatting – will determine how much your audience engages with it. If you want to captivate your audience and make them want to read more, then take time to properly format your text.
- Colour is an easy concept to understand. There are plenty of online resources providing information on colour psychology and which colours are best suited for your industry and target audience. However, we’ll take a closer look at the colours that are present in your document right now.
- Graphic elements are charts and graphs, images, lines, borders, icons, etc. These elements need to be stylistically consistent in colour and style to provide visual harmony in your document.
Lesson 1. Layout: The secret to compelling first impressions
Your document’s layout is the first impression readers have of your content, so it’s crucial that you design the layout in a way that is visually pleasing and encourages your audience to engage with your content.
Avoid overwhelming your readers with pages filled with dense, hard-to-read text. Use white space in your layout by incorporating generous margins and well-crafted text styles to give breathing room and ‘air’ between lines and paragraphs.
Add pictures to enhance the impact of your message and keep your image shape and placement consistent to avoid unnecessary distractions. Choose charts and tables wherever possible to convey information graphically and add interest to an otherwise text-heavy page.
Make your document easy to navigate by including a header, footer, and page numbers. If there are multiple pages in your document, consider adding a table of contents. These layout features guide readers through your document and enable them to find the information they want quickly.
Takeaway: Go to the Layout tab in the Ribbon, and select the Page Setup group. Go to the Margins tab to adjust the document margins. Add page numbers via the Insert tab and Header & Footer group. Choose the References tab and Table of Contents group to insert a table of contents.
Lesson 2. Fonts: So much more than pretty (type)faces
Too many fonts in a document are distracting for your readers and can make your work look unorganised and unprofessional. Using two fonts – three at the most – will automatically give your document a more cohesive look.
Depending on the kind of publication, you might choose, for instance, a sans serif font for headings and a serif for body text. You might also use a third font for breakout box text or to emphasise certain information. The fonts you use can make a significant difference to the overall look and feel of your document.
Choosing a lighter font for body text and a heavier font for headings gives your pages tonal variation and makes your document more visually interesting. If you choose wisely, each font family will have a good range of weights and styles to cover most document needs such as regular for body copy, bold for emphasis, and italic for quotes and captions.
It’s easy to be overwhelmed by the vast number of fonts available. Look to sources like magazine articles, webpages, advertisements, or other designs that catch your eye to find inspiration and guide font choices in your document. Additionally, Word provides several built-in text themes that change the text for you.
Takeaway: Make sure all your headings are the same size, font and colour. Do the same for the body text in your document. If you’d like Word to do it for you, go to the Design tab in the Word Ribbon, and in the Document Formatting group, select the drop-down menu under the Fonts button. Choose a new set or customise them to suit you.
Lesson 3. Text: Improve readability to engage your audience
Text-heavy documents or lengthy pages can be overwhelming for readers. By using headings, bullet points, and other basic formatting features, you can improve the readability of your content and keep your audience engaged.
Break up large blocks of text with headings wherever possible. This will not only make your pages look better by creating more space on the page, but also help your reader find the information they need easily.
Use bullet points to create emphasis and focus the eye. Generally, bullet points are used for lists but consider using them instead of a long paragraph to provide concise explanations of specific points. It’s also important that bullet points are properly aligned.
Don’t be tempted to use bold, italic, and an underline. It’s too much; keep it simple. Use bold for words or sentences you want to highlight and save italics for quotes and captions. Underlined text is a holdover from typewriter days and is best left for URLs.
Body text looks better aligned left. Justified text creates dense blocks of type that are boring and harder to read. Additionally, indented paragraphs are better suited to book layouts. Create a ‘space after’ setting on your paragraph styles to improve readability.
Check your line spacing too. You should allow at least two extra points (or more) over the font size you’re using so the text doesn’t appear too tight, e.g., if the font size is 10 points the line spacing should be at least 12 points.
The length of your text (i.e., the width of the lines on the page) also plays a role in its legibility. When your text stretches across an entire A4 page, it becomes excessively wide and difficult to read. However, if you decrease its width by a quarter or a third, reading becomes easier as the reader’s eye doesn’t have to travel as far across the page and back again reading each line.
Takeaway: Look at your document. If you notice large blocks of text, think about how you can use headings and bullet points to break up them up. Increase line and paragraph spacing if needed. Reduce the line length of your copy if it spans the whole page. Go to the Home tab on the Word Ribbon. You can make adjustments in the Paragraph group.
Lesson 4. Colour: Make an impact with a minimal colour palette
We have so many options for colours and fonts at our fingertips, it’s easy to get carried away with adding all the shades of the rainbow to our documents. But here’s the thing: too many colours can be incredibly distracting.
If you have brand guidelines, the colours are already selected. However, if you don’t have guidelines, think of using a duo of well-matched colours that will create a cohesive look. Again, take inspiration from, for example, favourite magazine layouts, websites, interior design spaces, etc.
Consider using a third colour as a ‘pop’ to highlight breakout boxes and essential information. Use tints or shades of the selected colours in charts and tables and other graphic elements. However, be aware of how these colours appear when printed (if this is a requirement) as opposed to how they appear on screen.
Use a dark colour for body text for maximum contrast and better legibility. Considered use of colours in headings, graphical elements, and bullet points throughout your document’s content will significantly improve its visual appeal.
Takeaway: Choose two or three colours that work well together. Use their tints/tones if you need variations in tables, charts, etc. If you’re unsure or overwhelmed, use Word’s in-built colour themes. On the Ribbon, go to the Design tab. Under the Colors group, you’ll find loads of themes to use or customise.
Lesson 5. Graphics: Create visual harmony with cohesive elements
Having cohesive graphic elements is essential for achieving visual harmony in your document. A standardised and consistent approach not only elevates your document design from amateur to professional but also captures and maintains your readers’ attention and engagement with the content.
First, think about what each element is doing. Does it serve a purpose? Charts and graphs convey data. Breakout boxes bring attention to important information. Avoid unnecessary borders and tacky clip art that overcrowd the page. Removing useless elements immediately creates more white space, reduces clutter, and makes your content easier to read and navigate.
Keep shape styles consistent in fill, line, and effects. If some icons or shapes have a drop shadow and some don’t, choose a style and make them all the same. Charts, tables, and graphs should appear with the same font sizes, spacing, line widths, and colour.
To maintain a cohesive and stylish document design, make sure you keep the size and shape of your images consistent. Different shapes competing with each other are a visual distraction and look untidy and ill-considered. Additionally, including image captions provides context so your reader understands what they are seeing.
Takeaway: Check graphic elements for consistency in line weight, style, and colour. Think about what each element is doing. If it doesn’t serve a purpose, get rid of it. Use Word’s in-built Shape Styles to help you. Click on a shape and go to the Shape Format tab. On the Shape Styles group, you can add a visual style to the selected shape, line, etc. to give your elements a cohesive look.
