White paper writers slave over their words to convey the right messages. But it’s not just the words that influence; it’s also the way they’re presented on the page. An effective layout can give your words more impact.

According to white paper specialist Jonathan Kantor of the Appum Group, the layout should convey professionalism. “A professional-looking design will make your white paper stand out in a crowded field of plain or boring papers. The design should enhance the client’s image by providing an enterprise-class look and feel.”

“It should also be attractive to the eye,” says Kantor. “Warm colors and pleasing design elements draw the reader into the content.”

Make It Easy to Read
When it comes to page design, Michael Stelzner, author of Writing White Papers, says readability is the key.

“To make the written word more digestible for the reader, I take my cues from the world of sales letter copywriting,” explains Stelzner. “The basic layout and formatting techniques I employ include using short paragraphs and bullets to create white space that makes the copy easy to read.”

Stelzner also recommends these techniques:

* Use call-outs to fill some white space and draw the reader’s eye to important quotes or information.

* Every three or four paragraphs, break up the text with a subhead. Besides making the copy easier to look at, this lets “skim readers” jump to the next section if they want to.

* Leave a 2.5-inch margin on the left side of the page. This makes the copy narrower on the page (and gives readers a place to jot down notes).

Design Is a Powerful Weapon
Another way to make your layout more effective is to work with a graphic designer. Roger C. Parker, author of Looking Good in Print and Design to Sell, gives these tips for making the partnership work:

“Hire someone with experience in print-publication design. Even if your white paper will be distributed in PDF from your website, it’s still a print publication. Publication design is different than logo design or website design.”

“Start the design process with a creative brief that spells out project goals, expectations and deadlines. Attractive, easy-to-read white papers are rarely designed and produced under last-minute deadlines. Give the designer enough time to do the job right.”

Parker offers these other design tips:

Line length—Use an easy-to-read, multi-column page layout that limits line length. Lines should contain between 30 and 42 characters, or 7 or 8 words.

Typeface—Serif typefaces are easier to recognize. Times Roman, Garamond, Bookman and Century Schoolbook are easy-to-read typefaces.

Type size—Type that’s too large or too small is hard to read. Type must be large enough for word shapes to be recognizable, but small enough to allow several left-to-right eye scans per line.

Line spacing—This is as important as type size, sometimes more important. Line spacing should separate lines enough to let readers focus on one line at a time.

Your painstakingly crafted words convey your white paper’s business message and a great layout can give them more power. Use both elements well and your paper will stand out from the crowd.

For more information on graphic design for white papers, check out Michael Stelzner’s book Writing White Papers and download Roger Parker’s no-cost report, White Paper Design That Sells: 16 Easy-to-Implement Best Practices.

This entry was posted on Saturday, February 2nd, 2008 at 3:43 pm and is filed under Writing. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.