John McWade

Design How-To: Tell Your Readers Where to Go

We're trained to read left to right. Take advantage of this and turn your page sideways, then add a horizontal line of photos that accelerates the movement to the right and leads readers directly to your main message.

Design How-To: Use Lego-Like Modules

Want a simple format that's useful when designing everything from postcards to Web pages? Use snap-together modules that provide endless variety.

Five Great Design Ideas to Use Now

So you're just sitting there, staring at a blank piece of paper or computer screen, as if the Idea Fairy will come along and bop you on the head. Consider this article the magic wand you've been waiting for.

Design How-To: Unleash the Action!

A still photo is real life on pause. Here's how to get things moving again -- and get plenty of attention for your designs.

Design How-To: Help Photos Tell a Story

As a designer, you can't always control the quality and type of photos you must work with. But you can easily improve almost every photo with creative cropping.

Design How-To: Stick It!

Many businesses hand out magnets with useful information (measurement charts, calendars, etc.) and their name and phone number. Here's how to make this gimmick a visually appealing tool customers will want to keep.

Design How-To: Turn One Photo Into a Thousand Images

Well, maybe not a thousand. But you can often carve up a large photo into several smaller images. You'll stretch your photo dollar, and your images are almost guaranteed to be unified in color and texture.

Design How-To: Impossible Deadline and Budget? Time to Go Back to the Basics.

See how one expert successfully meets the challenge. Along the way, you'll pick up tips on ideal images; page layouts and color palettes that simplify the job; and making the most of one type family.

Design How-To: Get a Great Cover with a Label-Style Title

Whether you need to add punch to a cover and don't have an image, or text is a supporting actor to a star photo, a title that looks like it's a label is an excellent alternative.

Design How-To: Create a Flier that Comes Back

On a budget? Need a response? Design a flier that's its own envelope!

Design How-To: Turn Letters Into Logos

John McWade of "Before & After" magazine helps you change common letters into a logo any company would be proud to call its own.

Design How-To: Make Eye-catching Small Calendars

Electronic organizers are a great way to manage your calendars when what interests you is data. But to tell a story, present a product or stir a memory, you'll want a good, old-fashioned paper calendar. Here's how to design a small calendar.

Design How-To: Take a Layout from Dull to Dazzling

A design can be well crafted yet miss the mark entirely. By following the transformation of Web banners for a bluegrass concert series, you'll learn how to inject energy and authentic visual cues into any type of layout for any event.

Design How-To: Choose the Right Typeface Every Time

Flashy typefaces are fun, but when you design something with large blocks of text, you need a font that doesn't tire your readers. We share our favorites and reveal easy tricks for identifying other suitable choices.

Design How-to: Brochures that Get Noticed

You don't need metallic inks or tricky die-cuts to create a brochure everyone wants to pick up. Just offset the folds and work a little design magic. It's easy -- we even give you templates!

Design How-To: Make Type and Photos Play Nice

When text and images are battling for the same space, you don't have to give up one or the other. Here are practical techniques for bringing the two together.

Design How-To: Solve Color Dilemmas

No matter what you're creating -- a print piece, a Web site, an illustration -- the element with the greatest effect on your audience is color. How do you choose the right one, or even more daunting, the best mix?

Design How-to: A Better Newsletter

Before & After magazine is renowned for its practical yet beautiful advice on laying out pages. This excerpt from the book "Before & After Page Design" is no exception. Here's all you need to know -- from the basics to the refined detail -- to design successful newsletters.

Design How-to: Endless Pattern Possibilities

Just one simple step-and-repeat technique is all you need to create striking background patterns perfect for the covers of books, annual reports, brochures -- you name it.

Design How-To: Working with Photos

So your staff meeting is coming up and your boss tells the administrative assistant to take some photos for the corporate newsletter. When he returns, he hands you generic snapshots taken from across the room. Here's how to salvage the job with cropping and layout.