Layout of paper of vital import

HP NEWSLETTER:The second in a series of HP Newsletter competition guides looks at the importance of editing and layout

"It's amazing that the amount of news that happens in the world every day always just exactly fits the newspaper."- Jerry Seinfeld

LAST WEEK we said that news stories have to be new, interesting and true. But no matter how fresh or worthy they are, they must be packaged in an appropriate and readable fashion.

The correct editing and layout of your newsletter is hugely important and will be best realised if you work as a team.

Firstly, you'll need an overall editor who, at all times, has the vision for your publication at the forefront. The editor will make sure everyone else knows what's required of them, not only in terms of the written content, but also visually.

You'll also need to pick your subeditors. Subs must have skills in grammar and punctuation, a good eye for sentence structure and headline writing. They clean up the news reporters' blunders, of which there are always a couple.

The subeditor must also fit the news stories into the allocated space on the page, so all news stories need to have specific word counts. Remember also that they must be written with as much information as possible in the first few sentences. This means that if the subeditor is stuck for space, he or she can cut some sentences from the end without losing any vital information from the story.

Headline writing is another key skill. Headlines must adequately summarise and capture the essence of the story. Keep them short and to the point.

Once all this has been done, the edited news should then be passed to the production and layout team.

The first step with layout is to come up with a template, or general design, for your page. The template can be used over and over again and gives the overall visual style to the publication. At the layout stage you can add illustrations - photos, graphics, grids, all that kind of thing. So, in essence, layout involves placing the actual copy for the news stories into the template pages and sourcing images and graphics to accompany that copy.

Aisling Breen of Rathmines College of Media cites six key factors to remember when laying out your page.

• Margin: remember to leave a margin around your page.

• Columns: the space left for text needs to be adequate. In production you need to decide on a set number of columns.

• Gutters: the space you leave between the columns.

• Text: should only be added when the columns and gutters are set.

• Illustrations: add them next.

• Headlines and captions: put these in last.

"There needs to be a balance between editorial and illustrations," advises Breen. "Plus your front page should have impact as it will draw the reader to the publication and then further into the main section of the newsletter."

In short, make sure your headlines and images are eye-catching. Don't skimp on design and layout. Presentation is everything.

• The deadline for HP's Newsletter Competition is November 28th. For details, call 01-5224800 or see http://h40059.www4.hp.com/newslettercompetition/index.html