Boxed Print

Newspapers, magazines, brochures, pamphlets, and virtually all other publications have a variety of “makeup” options that an editor can select to communicate visually to the reader. Such questions of design are equally important on the Internet and the World Wide Web, both on “landing pages” and elsewhere on a website to encourage, direct, and engage readers. A well-laid-out page spread of a newspaper or other printed publication (e.g., a magazine, a newsletter, or a pamphlet) not only is attractive and inviting but also directs readers across the page spread in a way that can be predicted and controlled. The spread can showcase what the editor wants to emphasize as well as direct readers in the sequential order that the editor or designer wants the elements viewed. Importantly, except for the front and back pages, a publication's “page spread” of facing left and right pages is usually considered as one visual unit.

Indeed, a knowledgeable and skilled layout editor or graphic designer can predict and control with almost complete certainty how readers proceed in viewing information that is presented on the page spread, using such elements of makeup as body copy (text); headlines, subheads and editorial blurbs/pullout quotes; photographs and other art (e.g., line art) and their accompanying cutlines/captions; and white (negative) space—all of which can be used to entice and enhance readership and to make information-processing as easy as possible for the readers.

Of course, different publications are used in different ways; for example, newspaper editors know that virtually no one will read the whole newspaper, so they present content (stories and art, including photographs)in a way that helps readers select what is most significant to them and/or what interests them the most. Magazine editors likewise know that few people read a whole magazine cover-to-cover, although they hope readers will be interested in a far greater percentage of an issue's feature-length stories than would read a similar portion of the myriad stories that are presented in a newspaper. Pamphlets and brochures are most often designed to be read in their entirety and are laid out accordingly—to encourage readership of the whole publication, usually from front to back. The seeming infinity of a website and its links creates another dimension and another set of challenges for content editors who attempt to direct readers.

To add visual interest as well as to feature or spotlight a story or article, boxes are frequently used to surround the print (i.e., the text). Traditional newspaper makeup uses boxed print on occasion to showcase a short human-interest story as well as to brighten a page. “Modular” newspaper makeup depends on boxed print to dramatize a large and important story, and the corresponding text is usually surrounded by a quite narrow “hairline rule,” which may have either squared corners or rounded corners, that surrounds the story and its accompanying art, for example, photographs and cutlines (more commonly referred to today as captions). The use of boxed print requires at least a two-column story (some editors may argue that at least a three-column story is better), and each page may have a boxed print (it's usually better to have only one such boxed print per page or else all emphasis can become no emphasis). As a visual element, boxes add “weight” to a page or page spread that helps balance or contrast other visual elements, and thus boxed prints may appear at the bottom of a page to help create page balance.

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