6 Typography Tips: How to Organize Text for Custom Booklets

While fonts may be fun to experiment with, organizing typography structure for booklets is a different story. It may sound like a trite feature at first, but thoughtfully organizing text hierarchy can help readers navigate through your booklet, keeping them engaged while educating them about your brand. In this article, we learn about typography and share tips on how to organize text in custom booklets.

1. Identify your paper size. Deciding your paper size at the onset of your booklet project helps you set your expectations for how much content you can fit into the material. This helps you set expectations for how much content you can fit in your booklet. Whether you’re working on something as compact as an 8-page booklet or a comprehensive 96-pager, it’ll be easier for you, your writer, and your designer to plan the pagination and layout when you know the limitations of your medium. It’s also worth checking with your printer the binding options available so you can factor this when you’re setting margins and bleed marks, as well as the different paper types and thicknesses for cover and inside pages.
2. Plan each panel. Ideally, your copy should be completed and finalized before you work on pagination. As you plan your booklet’s cadence, plot which parts of your text goes into which page. Also, remember to economize booklet space between typography and images so you can pull off a cohesive booklet design.
3. Establish a clear hierarchy. Classify headlines, subheadings, and body texts and create a logical flow for your content. You can also isolate pull quotes, statistics, and important dates that you want to highlight in bigger or bolder letters. As for the inside panels, organize brand or product information by using roman (i.e., non-italicized and non-bold) fonts for body text or supporting copy. Different font weights and colors can be used to highlight important details — use these as opportunities to highlight nuggets of information that you want your readers to recall even after reading.
4. Stick to three fonts. One way to make the selection painless is by putting a limit on the number of fonts you’ll use. Sticking to two or three fonts throughout your booklet will make reading easier, and it will keep your booklet looking professional too. Use decorative fonts with care and make sure that it’s novel enough to hold the readers’ attention without distracting them from your message and your overall branding. If you want to keep it simple, you can use fonts and sizes from the same typeface and use these for your headings, subheadings, and body text. You can throw in subtle variations such as italics or boldface. Another alternative is establishing contrast, such as using a serif font for headings and a sans serif font for body text. Regardless of what you decide on, don’t compromise readability.
5. When in doubt, justify left. It’s typical in Western cultures to read texts from left to right and it’d be wise to do the same for your marketing tools to ensure readability, especially when dealing with body text. That said, check for reading conventions if you’re designing a booklet meant to be distributed outside the U.S. Depending on how much creativity you’re allowed to exercise, you can play around with center and right alignments for some parts like titles or pull quotes.
6. Leave room for white space. Give your readers’ eyes a visual break by leaving room for white space in your booklet. Adequate white space will help you ensure that you’re overdesigning, which can make it hard to follow. Don’t crowd pages with too much copy and break down paragraphs if needed. Observe spacing between chunks of text and images so readers are not overwhelmed by excessive copy.