AFTER:


AFTER design elements:

We redid the "logo" and masthead. We felt the previous version needed a more contemporary look. The bulls-eye "O" clashed with the Copperplate typeface. Because the newsletter's name is "Focus" we made that the most prominent word in the masthead. We wanted the masthead to reflect the vitality and community involvement of the association, so we changed the newsletter's name to "LAHq in Focus" which, we felt, expresses action. In order to retain the emphasis on the "O" in the word FOCUS, we made it a different color. We reduced the blue "O" to an icon used to indicate the end of an article.

Next, we changed the paper to matte and changed the blue from a bright (overly used) royal blue to a more muted, sophisticated steel blue. The newsletter had to be black plus one PMS color. We felt a different PMS color to reflect each quarterly season would help distinguish publication dates easily. The four PMS colors selected were muted blue, a sage green, a soft rust or burnt orange, and a dark mustard.

Three typefaces were chosen: two sans-serif and one serif for contrast. The headings and bulk of the body text are sans-serif, with the serif used for the President's message. We felt a sans-serif typeface looked cleaner and more contemporary. Due to the amount of time people spend on the web (where sans-serif is often easier to read) and the increased use of sans-serif as body copy in general for shorter bodies of text, we felt it would retain legibility.

A three-column grid allows the type to flow more smoothly and to give more flexibility as well as more interest to the page layout.

The new look was extremely well-received.

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