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For centuries,
newspapers used column rules (vertical lines) and cutoff rules
(horizontal lines) to separate stories. Back in the
’60s and ’70s, rule-less gutters became popular,
but nowadays rules are back. And most of the best-designed
papers use them.
Advantages: Rules organize stories and pages into
neat stacks. They even let you get away with butting headlines
and colliding art elements, up to a point (see below).
Disadvantages: When drawn down the middle of a narrow
gutter, rules can crowd the text beside it. And if you widen
the gutter to alleviate the crowding, sliding stories slightly
sideways, your page grid can look wonky and unaligned. Rules
work best with wider gutters.
Tip: Horizontal cutoff rules can be thin, thick
-- even screened or fancied up a bit, depending on your
paper’s style. But it’s usually best to keep
standard vertical column rules as thin and unobtrusive as you
possibly can.
An example of
rules organizing a page (and keeping headlines from butting).
To view a larger version of this page, click here.
