Can the typesetting expert guide the typesetting skills and operation of newspapers?

Layout is the overall expression of the layout of various contents in a newspaper. Whether a newspaper is readable or not and whether it can attract people's attention at the newsstand depends largely on the layout. Through the layout, readers can feel the newspaper's attitude and feelings about news events, and also feel the newspaper's characteristics and personality. Layout attracts readers, mainly to attract readers' vision, and to use people's visual physiology and visual psychology to produce powerful visual shock waves and firmly hook readers' eyes. The characteristic of Beijing Youth Daily is "heavy eyebrows and big eyes", which requires the newspaper to stand out from the crowd in the newsstand, and readers can be the first to print it a few meters away. This requires that in layout design, a variety of innovative layout means should be used to embody the theme, which will have extraordinary effects on readers' visual experience.

There is no fixed formula for layout and layout, and there should be no fixed formula. Some layout processing was taboo in the past, but readers, including many people in the industry, thought it was very distinctive and even formed their own unique style. Some people deliberately "touch the thunder" according to the needs of the layout content, which is not a foul, but an innovation. For example, at the beginning of the publication of Hangzhou Urban Express, it appeared in front of readers with the face of no vertical topic in the whole newspaper. At a glance, unconventional, generous and decent, it was quickly recognized by readers. Later, several influential newspapers in Zhejiang Province chose this form one after another. These newspapers are not bound by any traditional layout rules, and they have innovated a brand-new layout, adopted horizontal titles to facilitate readers' reading, pursued the combination of readers' vision and layout, and kept the newspapers updated. It is the pleasure of editors to innovate newspaper layout and fully mobilize readers' visual feelings.

First, let the eyeball be attracted first-create a visual shock wave of the layout

When people appreciate a painting, they will follow such an appreciation order: first look at the whole painting and have a general impression, then their eyes will stop at a certain place on the picture, which is the "visual center" of the picture, and then move to read the whole painting. The reason for this phenomenon is that from the physiological structure of the human eye, only one visual focus can be produced, and it is impossible for people to stay in more than two places at the same time. The process of appreciating works is the process of moving visual focus. This theory, when applied to newspaper layout, is mainly to increase the processing of the visual center of the layout, so that readers can be attracted by it from a few meters away. There are many newspapers on the newsstand, and the visual center of this newspaper should become the visual center of many newspaper pages. After browsing, readers can't wait to stay in this visual center and pay for it first. From the specific arrangement means, the following factors can often highlight the visual center:

1, highlighting the central theme.

In the retail market, newspapers are folded in half on newsstands, and only the upper part of the page can be displayed. Therefore, it is extremely important to put the pictures and titles with the most visual impact on the upper part of the layout for highlighting. The title can become the visual center by increasing the area occupied by the title, increasing the column width of the title, lengthening the title, increasing the title font size and highlighting the title. At the same time, we should be careful not to make the layout too fancy, divert readers' attention from the news itself, and let us inadvertently glance at the newsstand and leave a foot. After the revision of Xinhua Daily, the ratio of titles to words is about 1:2, and it is divided into big pictures, headlines and thick lines, which gives readers a strong visual appeal, penetration and shock. In addition, when the layout shows major events, it is often necessary to highlight a center while reflecting the rich and colorful content. The prominent center of the page is what the editor wants to say most. Using a variety of layout methods and highlighting a theme will leave a deep impression on readers and achieve good publicity results.

2. Use pictures skillfully.

Modern society is an era of "reading pictures". Illustration is one of the principles of designing excellent layout, and with the development of the times, the role and status of pictures are becoming more and more prominent, and the status of layout is getting higher and higher. Whether the newspaper arranges photos of different sizes properly directly affects the aesthetic degree and visual center of the layout. Photos create an atmosphere for the news of the day, tempting us to read a report that may be ignored, or stimulating our vision to attract us to buy a newspaper. Because the role of photos in expressing abstract content is very limited, newspaper editors seek a new "prescription": news icons. Its advantage is that it can attract readers' attention and give readers the most information, including charts, diagrams, maps and so on, with the least pen and ink and the least space in the shortest time.

3. Increase the highlights of the layout.

Sometimes newspaper headlines and articles give way to political content and readers are not interested. At this time, it is necessary to highlight the manuscripts that readers like to read in the middle and lower parts of the layout, increase the highlights of the layout, and make it a visual center, thus changing the bad layout of the upper part of the layout, such as titles, long messages, subtitles, short messages and top-heaviness. When highlighting the middle and lower manuscripts, some methods can be adopted, such as local pattern lining, increasing the title font size and page space, highlighting the title design, the strange change of title shape, increasing the page space occupied by articles, unique lace form, and pressing the title map. You can also compare "rare factors", for example, there is a diagonal line in many vertical lines, or there is a vertical line in many diagonal lines. Rare factors often stand out because of quantitative contrast and become the visual center in the picture. Contrast is the basis of visual stimulation, including light and shade contrast, direction contrast, size contrast, straightness contrast and so on. In addition, a title with sound, color and strong appeal has caught the readers' heartstrings in a few words, and the titles are arranged in various forms, such as the flat head at the left or right end of the title line, the appropriate blank space for the subtitle of the title, the black and white patchwork, which is very modern and attracts the readers' attention. Visual center theory can better activate layout and better handle the relationship between overall layout and parts, parts and parts. You can even sort out the visual level through the strength of layout expression, so that readers can unconsciously read what they want first, then what they want to see, and finally what they want to see. However, there should not be too many visual centers in the layout, which is a very effective layout form when two or even sometimes three important manuscripts or pictures need to be highlighted in the layout. If there are too many manuscripts to highlight, there is no visual center.

Second, describe the "vivid expression" of the newspaper-the formation of visual beauty

Excellent layout can describe the "vivid expression" of a newspaper, leave a deep visual impression on us and make the newspaper full of rhythm. Rhythm not only means the dynamic and smooth layout design, but more importantly, the interesting, contradictory and unified layout content, from elaborate titles to appropriate details of words, clear taste of pictures and obvious decoration. The unity of content and form is the premise of creating the beauty of layout. The beauty of layout is felt through vision. The visual factors in the layout are unified and diverse, which makes the layout neither monotonous nor chaotic, full of spirituality, poetry and beauty.

1 enriches the "expression" of news.

Different pages have different inner souls, and only by grasping the connotation can we describe the "expression" of news. Modern layout design is no longer a combination of a few lines, but reflects the personality of the newspaper and conveys its attitude towards the news, which requires editors to describe the news with artistic methods and targeted layout language and create a layout with "expression". The "expression" of the news edition strives to be dignified and calm, and the layout pays attention to the solemnity of the atmosphere, reflecting the weight and internal shock of the news manuscript; The "expression" in the style version strives to be lively and exciting, and uses a dazzling array of pictures to express a strong cultural atmosphere or a sense of tension when watching the game; The expression of life supplement is warm, fashionable and relaxed, and it conveys the lifestyle of modern people through interesting arrangement.

2. Diversity and unity of visual effects.

Modern layout design allows readers to know the name and layout of the newspaper at a glance without looking at the title, which is the unique personality style of the newspaper. A page without personality is a failure, just like a face without personality, which is not easy to remember visually. The style of the whole newspaper should have a unified design and form a whole. The overall visual design of a newspaper, just like its ci image design, should reflect the orientation and purpose of running a newspaper and adapt to the appreciation taste of the target audience at a deeper level. At the same time, every editor should work hard on the layout he is responsible for, form his own personality style on the premise of keeping the overall style consistent, and plan a fresh and eye-catching layout day after day to achieve diverse and unified visual effects. Judging from the specific layout of the layout, the unity of various elements is not only the need for easy reading, but also the need for visual beauty. Too many changes can only further increase the burden. From the visual effect, unity can better reflect the sense of order. In addition, the effective use of "rhythm" can also make the layout beautiful. Rhythm refers to the repetition of the same phenomenon. For example, a good layout will make multiple titles arranged in a "trapezoid", which will make the layout musical.

3. Pursuing visual balance.

Layout is the planning and arrangement of layout elements. Excellent layout design shows the harmonious proportional relationship between its various components and achieves visual balance. In the composition theory of painting, balance means that the composition of the picture should strive to make all kinds of forces equal, so as to obtain a sense of stability. Hegel said: "In a larger composition, the best way is to divide the whole into several easily recognizable parts without making them appear scattered." The same is true for layout design. The layout elements in the layout must consider visual force, quantitative factors and physical factors, so that their distribution in the picture is roughly equal. Reflect the principles of contrast, unity, balance, rhythm and movement, and handle the relationship between primary and secondary, convergence and dispersion, picture and ground (background), group and spacing, four corners and diagonal, blank space and layout rate. In addition, the principle of proportion is also an important basis for realizing the aesthetic feeling of form. Leonardo da Vinci said: "Aesthetic feeling is completely based on the sacred proportional relationship between the parts", and we can adopt "three three Huang Jinlv" as the proportion of layout (the four points where two vertical lines and two horizontal lines intersect are the visual center); "Quartering method" (the layout is divided into vertical, horizontal and horizontal, and several adjacent rectangles are combined together to form beautiful symmetry and balance); "Golden Section" theory (the aspect ratio is 1: 0.6 18, so as to set the font size, line thickness, bounding box size and the combination ratio of points, lines and surfaces). , to achieve the balance of layout vision.

Third, take unobstructed sight as the starting point-reduce the physiological and psychological pressure of vision.

Now is an information explosion society, and modern readers are diversified and in a hurry. In the highly competitive newspaper market, whoever can let readers get as much information as possible in the shortest time is the winner. The theory of mass communication interprets the process of news dissemination, that is, from the writing of journalists to the acceptance of readers, as the process of encoding and decoding. If there is "noise" in this process, it will affect the receiver's understanding of the information transmitted by the communicator. Therefore, the shorter and simpler this process is, the better the communication effect will be. Therefore, when designing the layout, we must follow the principle of conciseness and readability, so as to reduce the physiological and psychological pressure of readers' vision, and not make readers feel visual fatigue, so as to obtain better communication effect. From the research of physiology, we know that when the eyeball stops, we can only see the words, but we can't see the words when we jump; The line of sight reads from one line to another, the eyeball is beating, and you can't see the words; Read six words at most at a time, the more times your eyes beat, the more tired you feel ... With this knowledge, you can better design a layout with smooth lines of sight.

1, an element that simplifies the layout.

From the design style embodied in the award-winning pages in recent years, it can be seen that these pages are trying to give up the erratic prose, complicated flower lines, changeable fonts and dispensable flower nets, and pursue the masculine and straightforward beauty of thick eyebrows (headlines), small articles, big eyes (big pictures) and well-defined (block structure), with few turning points in writing. Beijing Youth Daily adopted this format earlier, which is "thick topic, short article, multi-plate, steel structure and big window". What reporters and editors want to say is very clear, which makes readers clear at a glance in a short time and improves the efficiency of reading newspapers in unit time and space. In addition, blank space can make people feel relaxed and happy when reading newspapers. The more important the title is, the more it should be left blank. And don't use the blank space in the photo casually. An American newspaper reporter made a vivid metaphor for the blank in the newspaper. He said: "The blank space that readers see on the dense pages is like a tired motorcyclist catching a glimpse of light after passing through a deep cave." The same is true of color newspapers. Nowadays, many colorful newspaper editors are keen on the use of colors. They list some beautiful colors according to their preferences and daub them on the page. The color is too convex or too concave. When they open the newspaper, readers have a feeling of browsing various colors of fabrics in department stores, and their vision is extremely tired. Smart editors never abuse colors, but only make the colors of newspapers closer to nature. As leonardo da vinci said, "If you want to make similar colors and arrange them beautifully, please pay attention to the order of neon sunshine."

2. Modular arrangement.

Module arrangement, Professor Mohn of Missouri School of Journalism explained: "Modules are squares, preferably long squares. It can be an article or a set of columns including text, attachments and pictures. The layout consists of modules. " The biggest advantage of this design is that it is convenient for readers to read. When modern readers read newspapers, their eyes often stay on the page for only a moment. Therefore, every manuscript or manuscript with similar and opposite meanings is framed and divided into blocks without crossing with other manuscripts, which can lock the reader's eyes and produce a simplified and regular aesthetic feeling. Readers naturally move to the next column after reading one column, instead of jumping irregularly, they often search for the next column after reading one column. From the perspective of visual psychology, modularity has its specific advantages. An important principle of Gestalt Psychology is that "the whole is greater than the sum of its parts". According to this proposition, we can clearly see the advantages of module design. If a group of manuscripts with related, similar or opposite meanings are scattered on the layout, then they are only independent manuscripts; If they are combined in the form of "square matrix", a new information that cannot be expressed in words may be generated, and even the effect of "1+ 1 greater than 2" may appear. In addition, the arrangement of modules is basically based on horizontal questions. From the physiological analysis of eye movement, it can be seen that horizontal reading is more labor-saving than vertical reading. At the beginning, this paper introduces the innovative horizontal layout of Hangzhou Daily, which is concise, lively and neat. Readers can read the manuscript in this format horizontally, and the movement is basically smooth. Because the manuscript is hidden, there is no need to look around, so reading is very labor-saving.