Re: [libreoffice-design] Re: Brochure template design - green community logo with testing content included

On 05/02/2013 03:03 AM, Mattias Põldaru wrote:
> 29.04.2013 17:01, Marc Paré kirjutas:
> > Oops! The files can be found here:
> >
> > [1] 
> > https://wiki.documentfoundation.org/File:LibreOfficeV.4.0.x-CommunityBrochureTemplate-A4.odt
> >
> > [2] 
> > https://wiki.documentfoundation.org/File:LibreOfficeV.4.0.x-CommunityBrochureTemplate-USLtr.odt 
> I took a look at these files. Please don't take it as much of a 
> criticism but friendly notes on how to improve it.

Just to be honest about the way the green logo design was started, I 
[Tim L. in the USA] created the original green brochure design for my 
"community based" needs that print well on my inkjet and black&while 
laser printers.  Then Marc Paré took that design and tweaked it.  Since 
I use the standard Letter size paper in the USA and most of the rest of 
the world uses the A4 standard paper, we needed to have two different 
versions, since the three frames/columns per size of the paper would be 
different sizes.

To be perfectly honest, I could print my brochures in A4 but the only 
paper of that size I can get is a "copy paper" quality of paper and not 
any heavier weight that would be used for brochures.  Also that A4 size 
"copy paper" costs about three times the price of the letter size copy 
paper quality of paper I can get from the same source or even locally in 
the "big box" office supply stores.


> Here are my remarks:
>
> The logo on top green bar is vertically aligned to nothing. It would 
> be pleasing on the eye if at least the paper icon looked vertically 
> centered. And if possible, center text vertically as well (as done in 
> previous versions).

Are you saying that you see the green logos are not centered on the 
columns/panels/frames?
Those logos should be centered on each panel of the brochure, except for 
the panel on the far right.
The green bar on the bottom "balances" the design on the page - .i.e. it 
looks better with them in my opinion.

When the content is added to the template, you should see the "logo" and 
the "template text" centered in the column/frame.  The actual text 
content would look great using a "full justification" in its text 
frame/"cell" but you have to deal with the word spacing issues and may 
need to do some manual hyphenations to make it look "good". Having 
content text centered, and not justified [left, right, full] does not 
look "professional" in some cases and with some types of content.


> As for goodlooking professional texts these usually have slightly 
> smaller text with greater line spacing. IMHO 10,5 pt with 120% line 
> spacing and 0.14 cm spacing below the paragraph looks fine. Although I 
> don't think I would ever use Liberation fonts myself.

The text size needs to be large enough for easy reading.  Sometimes the 
120% line spacing works, while others it does not.  Personally, I do not 
know how to set the 0.14 cm spacing after a paragraph.  I tend to modify 
the font size of a blank line between paragraphs to get the needed spacing.

> Right now we have 3 different greens on the page (front page logo, 
> front page text and border). We should reduce it to one (or two, if 
> one has to be pale).
The 3 greens maybe an issue for some, but that is a "design" issue with 
"branded" colors.  The green logo is the "exact" green color of the new 
splash screen and that color was used for the logo.  I was not the first 
to use that color.

The green of the "traditional logo" on the far right panel has been used 
since the 3.3.x days.

The text color either uses "green 1" the main color uses.
Or "green 0" which is darker and sometimes looks better than green 1 for 
text.

So yes, there may be several green colors, but it is all about using the 
current colors of the current logo and splash or web page colors.  The 
you use the best "branded" green for the readability of the text.  The 
darker green, for me, looks better in most situations.

> As for the white first page, saving ink is a good reason. But right 
> now it looks kind of dull. Maybe if we would add a colorful image with 
> all the icons flying out of LibreOffice box or something slightly 
> fancy. Or use even more white (see linked file).
Yes the far right panel, i.e. front panel, does not use a background 
color.  It is not the saving of the ink but the look it has after you 
print the color background on "standard" home/office inkjet printers.  
Large blocks of a single color does not print well with all of the 
different inkjets I used.  I use to have a color laser, and a printed 
background tended not to look "well" either in most cases I had to deal 
with.  Sometimes, I even had small bits of the toner "flack off" on the 
"heavy weight" paper used for brochures - i.e. cover stock weights.

I downloaded your file but it does not show anything like you stated 
except a single icon on the bottom of the left panel.  I do not know how 
"professional" icons flying out of the logo "box" would be.

> The panel positions on A4 doesn't exactly match, the positions from 
> left should be 0,6 (was 0,51), 10,5 and 20,4 cm (was 20,48). And since 
> you use panels the page text column gutter is not set, otherwise it 
> should be double the border, 0,51 * 2 = 1,02 cm. Or was it to match up 
> for the space lost when folding?
> (29,7−8,71⋅3)/6   = 0,595
> (29,7−8,71⋅3)/6⋅3+8,71   = 10,495
> (29,7−8,71⋅3)/6⋅5+8,71⋅2   = 20,395
I work with inches, not centimeters, in the USA.  Then Marc took my 8.5 
by 11 inch paper design and formatted it to A4 and cm measures. At that 
point, he tweaked it and then recreated a USA Letter paper size 
version.  At lease that is what I think he said he was doing.

The borders around the sheet/page should be the same for top, bottom, 
left, right.  Then the spacing between columns/frames should be double 
that.  Then, when you fold the sheet/page you will get the same margin 
on all sides of the visible panel or frame.  For the Letter size paper 
version, which I started with and Marc revised and made the A4 version, 
I used a quarter inch border for the panels. It looked well and had 
enough margins around panel/frame to fold. You have to try to get as 
much content space with the smallest margins, yet keep it large enough 
for the hand folding to be easily done by the people who print these 
brochures in their home/office. Most people do not have a folding machine.

> Since you use panels you could delete the bottom bar images and color 
> the panel bottom border, which would make the problem of hiding images 
> go away.
"hiding images?  I do not know what you are talking about.

As I stated earlier, the green bar on the bottom makes the page look 
more "balanced" and looks better than without it.  I state that opinion 
based on my testing with actual content in the brochure. That is the 
only real test I use.  Sure you can make a great looking design for the 
document, but if it does not look good when you fill in the document's 
content then you have to rethink your design.  I always create a 
brochure with some initial "unedited" content and then work the 
document's design to complement the content and its style[s].  Once the, 
in this case, brochure design with the initial content is working well, 
then you can remove the content and "tweak" the brochure template.  Then 
I take a "finalized" version of the template and refill it with the test 
content [or the exact content] and see if it still works well for its 
purpose.


> File with these changes is here (the colors are still not right).
> https://wiki.documentfoundation.org/File:LibreOfficeV.4.0.x-CommunityBrochureTemplate-A4-modified.odt 
>
>
> Regards
> Mattias


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