is from left to right.

Cutlines differ from captions, which label a picture, such as a mug shot or an image of some-thing like the NUS entrance, above left.

Both cutlines and headlines are written in the present tense.

A headline tells the story’s

essentials, its main aspect. A headline grasps the feature twist of the story, if there is one. Editors get ideas for headlines as they edit the story.

Headlines are skeletonised sentences— usu-ally with a subject, verb and object. Articles, such as “a”, “an” and “the” are usually dropped. Periods are not used at the end of sentences. Commas are substituted for “and”. Non-essen-tial modifiers, including personal pronouns, are dropped.

If a headline has more than one line, key facts go in the top line. Editors work on the

Writing head-lines and cutlines is as much an art as a skill.

The most important part of headline- and cutline-writing is getting the facts straight. Headlines should be specific, clear and unambigu-ous. Cutlines should, too, with all names spelt correctly.

Cutlines describe the picture without stating the obvious. Sometimes they add information not apparent in the picture, but which would complement the article they accompany, rather than just repeating information in the article.

Cutlines are written in full, but short and direct sentences. They are written with the as-sumption that readers will read the article for missing information. All persons in the picture, with the exception of very large groups, and key objects should be identified fully and clearly, from left to right. This is standard so you do not have to tell readers the identification

NewslettersThe Newsletter on Semester 2, 2013/14Content, design key to reaching publics

The key to newsletter effectiveness is identi-fication with the audience.

Newsletters are tailor-made for the situation, the time and the audience. Most have a chatty, informal style. Their hallmarks are specialised information, condensed from many sources, and brief, to-the-point writing. A newsletter’s appearance should be appropriate to its pur-pose, subject matter and audience.

The design tells readers the “attitude” of the publication, its approach to subject matter and which items are especially important.

Some items are always boxed or have other distinguishing features that get readers into the habit of seeking these for favourite information.

Newsletters can be printed on a large A3 sheet and folded to produce four A4-size pages or on an A4 sheet front and back for two pages.

More pages can be added. Other sizes include tabloid and broadsheet, or standard newspaper.

Simplicity is stressed in newsletters. One font, usually a serif font for readability, is used for body copy. Another font, often sans serif, is used for headlines. A third font may be used for the nameplate, masthead and other recurring features. A limited number of graphic elements is used consistently.

Newsletters most often have one to three columns. Multiple columns give a more read-able line width, greater opportunity for creative design, and more variation and interest. They make it easier to use graphics and illustrations.

A three-column format is like a magazine or miniature newspaper in appearance and can blend the best qualities of both magazine and newsletter designs. w

Good headlines tell story at a glance

See Headlines, p 2

Town Green in University Town offers students a space for play no matter day or night.

NUS Entrance A

InsideLay Out Steps in

InDesign

2

Newsletter Design

3

Using Photoshop

3

How & Why to Use

Dummies

4

Getting Good Art

4

Coming Next Issue

4

Headlines, from page 1whole headline at once so that a line and the thought break together and verbs, where practical, are not split.

Quotes in headlines take single quotation marks, headlines with quotes use the colon or em dash instead of a comma and an attribution verb. The name of the person pre-cedes the quote when a colon is used: President Tan: ‘I quit!’ The name is used at the end of a headline with an em dash: ‘I quit!’ — President Tan.

Numerals are used in headlines instead of spelling out numbers, even for numbers under ten. Numbers in cutlines follow the standard AP style.

Headlines are written in bold and should be proportional in size. That means that in an A4-sized newslet-ter, the type is no more than about 24 points. Headlines must extend at least three-quarters across a one-column story and at least half-way across the last column of a multi-column story.

Cutlines often are written in a different font, in a special style, such as italics or bold, and in a slightly smaller type size than the body copy.

Fonts and styles should be used consistently throughout the newslet-ter for both headlines and cutlines, although headlines may have dimin-ishing sizes as they are placed down the page. w

The NUS campus is set on a rolling landscape with many beautiful trees.

Newsletter layout easy in InDesignInDesign makes creating profes-

sional-looking newsletters fast and easy.

First, create a folder for all neces-sary text and graphics. Open InDe-sign, then choose InDesign > Prefer-ences. Select Units & Increments. Under Preferences, change Ruler Units > Horizontal and Vertical to Picas.

To create a new document, choose File > New > Document. In the Set-up box, designate number of pages, page size and orientation, number of columns, gutter width and page mar-gins. Save As, giving your document a unique name.

Adjust columns to custom widths by dragging the column guides or dragging the cross-hairs in the upper left corner to reset ruler to zero. When aligned, click OK. Save often as you work, especially after completing por-tions of the document.

When you want to place items on the page, use the Toolbox. Choose Window > Tools to make it visible.

Use the Selection tool to drag guide rules from the rulers. Guide rules help place elements.

To work with colour, choose Window > Swatches. Note the avail-able colours: CYMK for print, and RGB for the Web. On the Swatches window, choose New Colour Swatch. Change Color Type to Spot and Col-our Mode to a Pantone library, such as Pantone Solid Uncoated. Type the Pantone colour you want or scroll to it.

To create a colour line, select your new colour in the Colour Swatches

window. Change the Tint at the top of the window to any percentage. In the Toolbox, select the line tool. Set the point size of the line width and the line’s style in the control box. You can draw straight lines in any direction by holding down the shift key.

To create type, use the Type tool to create a text box. In the control win-dow, select the font, type size, leading and style. Click on the colour swatch. Type into the text block and use the Selection tool to position the text box.

To create a headline, click with the Type tool on the left edge of the first column of the story and drag a text box to the right edge of the last col-umn. Set the headline font, size, lead-ing, style and colour before typing. Shorten the depth of the text frame close to the lowest descender by using the Selection tool to drag its bottom edge by the lower centre square.

Prepare the body copy in a word processor. Edit the text, single-space and Save As text only.

In InDesign, click on the Para-graph Styles tab of the Swatches window and double-click on Basic Paragraph. In Paragraph Style Op-tions, set Basic Character Formats like the font, type size, leading and hyphenation. Under Advanced Char-acter Format, select English UK. Go to Indents and Spacing and set the First Line Indent at 1p0.

Draw a text frame with the Type tool. Go to File > Place to open your document. The story will automatical-ly fill the text frame. Adjust the length by “word-editing.” Align the edges of the columns. Once it fits, SAVE. w

2 Newsletter on Newsletters

The Newsletter onNewslettersThe Newsletter on Newsletters is a publication of the Department of Communications and New Media at the National University of Singapore.

Editorial BoardYour Name Here

Editor

Charlene Wee Cheong Kakit

Christopher OngMini Chandran Kurian

Co-Advisers

Faculty of Arts & Social Sciences11 Computing Drive, Block AS6

Singapore 117416www.fas.nus.edu.sg/cnm