subject: Reminders For Your Layout Artist When Working With Fundraising Calendars [print this page] The most important thing when it comes to using fundraising calendars are their calendar layouts. You will want those calendar layouts to be as perfect as possible so that you can appeal to the most number of customers with your fundraising calendars. If you are hiring a layout artist to do your layouts for you, or maybe you are doing your own layouts yourself, the tips below should be extremely valuable. We have listed down for you some important reminders that every layout artist needs to know when working with fundraising calendars. You should always remember this if you are creating your own custom calendars or you should tell this to your layout artists for them to integrate in to their habits.
Mind the printing bleeds In typical printing fashion, it is important to always mind or put in your printing bleeds. Printing bleeds are extra spaces on the layout that allows leeway for cutting discrepancies in calendar printing. Sometimes an exact dimension with colored backgrounds will have white spaces in its fringes because the cutting of the color calendars are just off by a few millimetres. You cant really blame the calendar printer when this happens since most of them recommend having printing bleeds in calendar layouts. So make sure you add your own printing bleeds to make sure that layout prints out right.
Allow for binding allowances Besides the printing bleeds, do not forget to add in binding allowances as well in the layout. In most cases you will need a quarter of an inch leeway at the top of your calendars to make way for binding. This typically will be for the holes in ring binding, or even the staples for staple binding. You can even add the recommended spots for the holes if you can. The functionality of the calendar will be better of course if you do allow for these binding allowances, so make sure you remember this in your layouts.
Balance and symmetry Now, you might have forgotten this so this is worth repeating. You should always practice some balance and symmetry to your calendar layouts. Do not just plug in design elements where you think it looks great. Balance your custom calendars out by adding the same amount of elements at the right and left of your color calendars. Of course make sure that the central portion has some design weight to it with its images and special objects perfectly centred. The more balanced and symmetrical your calendar is, the better looking it would be.
Always add cause information in all pages Your layouts should also always have cause information in all of the pages. Since your fundraising calendars will be changed to a new page each month, it is important that the crucial information is shown every time in each page. Many designers forget this and just use a separate page at the front or at the back for this. However, this is just a bad practice since it never really promotes the cause for the fundraising. So always make sure that each page has a snippet of information about you and about the fundraising.
Always get the layout checked by others Finally, one very important time for all layout artists is to always get the calendar layouts checked by others. Sometimes our own bias can get in the way of getting great fundraising calendars. That is why it is best to get others opinion so that they can confirm if you did good or you did bad with your calendar layouts. The more you know, the better you can improve your custom calendars.
Great! Now you can teach yourself or your layout artist the best reminders when you do create a layout for fundraising calendars. Use this knowledge well!
