August 10, 2010

Microsoft Office Documents Design and Layout

Filed under: Projects — Tags: , , , , , , — posted by Helen @ 2:28 am

If you work in a corporate environment, you probably create Microsoft Office documents, at least occasionally. It could be a PowerPoint template, or a Word file — you’ve done it at some point.

You may create great content but the problem is many people have trouble organizing information well. By “well” I mean “organize it so it’s easy to comprehend”.

And that, of course, is where the designer should come in and help you clean up your content. (The impact of a well-designed newsletter, presentation or a memo is severely underestimated. Many miscommunication issues could be avoided, presentations could be made clearer and meetings made shorter with a well laid-out document to guide you.)

Below is a few examples of how we “clean up” template files for our client’s internal use and external communications, and a few tips you can use to make your documents look better in the future.

Here are the 3 major problems we often see in documents created by client staff:

1) Spacing
Leave breathing room around graphic elements and paragraphs. The general tendency is usually to “bunch” everything together.
Yes, you may add an extra page by introducing space, but each point will stand on its own and be clearly visible.

This is the document “after”. Mouse-over to see it “before” we updated the layout.
document design and layout

2) Alignment
Don’t center everything, just don’t. Left-aligned text looks a lot more elegant, and it’s a lot easier to read. Justifying is … ahem… only justified if you’re working with a legal document.

3) Inconsistent styling
Use the same styling for equal-weight elements. Using Verdana, 16pt bold for headings? Make sure every heading is formatted the same way. Otherwise there is no clear signal when a new section begins.

Bonus tip: use italics sparingly. Few fonts look good when italicized.
In addition to that, if overused italic text – also known as “emphasized” – will dilute your point. The more emphasis you place throughout the document, the less weight each emphasized phrase carries. The same can be said about color – use it sparingly.

Table Formatting Before & After

Have a high volume of information to layout, or an important document to present?
Email or call (416) 861-8639 to speak with us.