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Editor's note: This edition of Morton's column draws extensively from her textbook, which is completely cited in the first reference. Remaining references to her textbook are cited in text only with the page number.
For five years now, this column has provided information to enable practitioners to segment publics based on demographic information. The purpose of such segmentation is to enhance decisions regarding those publics. The column began with an introduction to my segmentation process, then provided information to segment publics, and has occasionally illustrated how to use the process to gain insights into certain publics.
The Spring 2003 issue of Public Relations Quarterly, announced a new publication contest, the "Strategic Publication Awards." Lack of response to the contest has encouraged me to depart from my usual approach to this column to illustrate how design decisions relate to segmented target publics.
Design decisions that should be made considering the target public range from the basic choices of design approaches and layout to the more detailed choices regarding fonts, art and color. To illustrate the process of basing design decisions on characteristics of a target public, I will use the public from the Summer 2003 issue - retirees.
Design Approach and Layout
Two approaches to design influence layout. Orderly approaches follow design principles to produce orderly pages, treat items consistently across pages to create a publication that is easy to scan, and appeal most to traditional publics. Thus, for a publication targeted at retirees, an orderly approach is best. Lively approaches treat items in units and pages differently to provide readers with a series of surprises, appeal most to innovative publics, and are better for less serious purposes and less conservative publics.1
Formally balanced layouts work best for traditional publics because formal balance produces a static restful mood, and a classical look.2 It works well for informing traditional publics while informal balance works best for entertaining more modern publics (p. 18)....