Are people reading what you write? If so, do they understand it? And will you get the results you expect? Chances are, if you’re not following traditional rules of design, typography and layout, they're not, they don't and you won't.

Research from the book "Type and Layout" by Colin Wheildon (Strathmoor Press, 1995) confirms what traditionalists have been saying for years: how a report or advertisement looks can drastically reduce the number of people who read it, and the number of readers who understand it.

Here are a few rules the book reveals will help you get your message across.

Use a serif typeface

Serifs are the small strokes at the end of the main stroke of a letter. In one research study, people’s understanding of what they were reading dropped from 67 percent with a serif typeface to 12 percent with a sans serif.

For maximum legibility, choose a plain serif typeface, with easily discernible differences between letters.

Emphasise sparingly, using bold or italics

Don't use capitals for body text - only seven percent of readers found that body text in capitals was easy to read. When the same section was reset in a serif font in lower case, 100 percent found it easy to read.

Use bold sparingly. When much of the body text is set in bold, readers complain of eye fatigue. Besides, too much emphasis - like too much crying wolf - leads the audience to ignore the whole passage.

Underlining should never be used either in body text or in headlines. By spoiling the shape of the letters, it makes text difficult to read.

Be careful how you use boxes

There's some evidence that boxes do not provide emphasis. Modern readers appear to ignore anything printed in a box. Probably, this developed from our habit of ignoring advertising in newspapers and magazines. Boxes are useful for additional and supporting information.

Shading has the same effect as a box, in discouraging readers from considering the contents as part of the body text. Shading also reduces legibility.

Avoid reversed text

David Ogilvy, the advertising guru, says that copy should never be set in reverse. He says that it used to be "believed these devices forced people to read copy; now we know that they make reading physically impossible".

Break up long documents using subheadings

78 percent of those surveyed in one study said that they found subheadings useful, especially in long documents.

Use only two or three typefaces

"With so many typefaces, and so little knowledge, college students should be considered armed and dangerous."
Dennis G. Martin, Brigham G. Young University

Mixing typefaces can make the job look like a dog's breakfast. Most typographers stick to two typefaces in a book or report. Many choose to use only one, but in different sizes and weights.

Suit size of type and line to the page

The size of the letter depends on the age and reading level of the audience, and the length of the line. Most people find it easy to read type within the range 10 point on an 11 point base to 12 point on a 14 point base. The base measurement is the distance between the base of a letter and the base of one in the line immediately below.

Line length should be no less than 40 characters and no more than 60. This can be awkward on an A4 page. To keep the type size within the recommended ranges, you'll need two columns or very wide margins.

Justify lines

Justification increases comprehensibility, and is preferred by the majority of readers from a wide range of backgrounds. Ragged right is the next best. Text set ragged left, or following a curved margin, as used in many advertisements, is hard to read, and most people don't bother.

Use generous margins

Traditionally, hard and softcover books have been printed with around 50 percent of the page covered in type. Comprehensibility drops if 60 percent or more of the page is covered.

Let the text go with the flow

"Clarity in layout leads to clarity of content because it requires clarity of thought."
James Hartle, University of Keele

The layout of the page should follow the principle described by Arnold as 'reading gravity'. In the western world, we start reading from the top left-hand corner and work our way across each line and down to the next line until we reach the bottom right-hand corner. Reading gravity, then, is the entrenched habit of reading from the top left across and down the page to the bottom right. Ignoring the reading gravity principle reduces comprehensibility by nearly 50 percent.

Therefore, headings and subheadings should always come before the text they refer to - just above, or just to the left. Similarly, the best place for graphics, charts and tables is embedded in the text, adjacent to the text that refers to them.

"The tragedy is that the average advertisement is read by only four percent of people on their way through the publication it appears in. Most of the time, this is the fault of the so-called 'art director' who designs advertisements. If he is an aesthete at heart - and most of them are - he doesn't care a damn whether anybody reads the words. He regards them as mere elements in his pretty design. In many cases he blows away half the readers by choosing the wrong type. But he doesn't care. He should be boiled in oil."
David Ogilvy