Why Designing Newsletters is Like Building Websites

Why Designing Newsletters is Like Building Websites

Why Designing Newsletters is Like Building Websites

As a graphic designer I was drawn into designing websites because of the similarities to laying out newsletters.

I had become quite good at designing newsletters and magazines for companies and non-profit organizations, so when I started to explore ways for me to show my work on-line, I began to look into websites.

While in school pursuing my graphic arts degree, I took a couple of classes designing websites the old-fashioned way, inserting code via HTML and using an Adobe software called Dreamweaver. It was interesting but not my cup of tea.

I am a graphic designer and not an IT person working in code.

After discovering WordPress, I realized I could have the best of both worlds. You see, WordPress is the platform that allows you to design more visually, but you can also use code if you wish.

It has many drop-and-drag features that help the design move right along and let me do what I do best — create my visual magic in Photoshop and Illustrator.

To really make WordPress websites hum, install a theme. When a theme is installed into a WordPress website, it gives far more functionality, depending on the theme you use.

I use a premium theme called Divi made by a company called Elegant Themes.

This theme allows me to use my graphic art abilities to the fullest without getting bogged down in code. Now that is music to my visual ears

 

A good theme is critical to the success of a WordPress website.

 

Think of it this way:

1.) The WordPress Platform is like the foundation of a house. Everything about the house rests on the cement foundation. The walls and roof are completed with electric and plumbing installed within the walls of this house.

2.) A WordPress Theme allows you to install carpet, paint the walls, hang photographs on those walls and bring in furniture to customize this house into a home. This allows you to create a custom business storefront. 

Now back to Why Designing Newsletters is Like Building Websites.

When designing newsletters, I use a program by Adobe called InDesign. This software allows me to design multiple pages and many tools for different creative features for designing this publication much like WordPress does.

It takes a healthy learning curve to become proficient at both of these design tools and make custom, professional products to be sold to the business world.

The building-blocks of both WordPress and InDesign are very much alike in many ways.

Photoshop and Illustrator

I use both of these software’s to help design both a newsletter and a website. I do not know what I would do without them. They allow me to become very creative in both fields of publication.

Because InDesign, Illustrator and Photoshop are all made by Adobe they play together very well.

I was a photographer for 40+ years before becoming a graphic artist so I was used to using Photoshop.

I could make many adjustments to my own images as well as those I retrieved from a photo stock agency and photographs that customers would send to me for their website or newsletter.

Illustrator is a one-page design platform that allows you to design logos, social media memes, sliders for WordPress and much more.

Many times, I will have all four programs open at once as I go from one to the next on my different monitors. It allows me to be very efficient and improves my creativity tenfold.

Blogging on a WordPress website is a lot like a printed newsletter, but in a digital format that connects to the internet.

I have designed a newsletter that will be printed and at the same time used as a blog that will reach two very different types of people with the same information.

Of course, you do not use SEO (Search Engine Optimization) on a printed newsletter but it is very important when designing your blog like you would do with a website page.

Search engines like Google and Bing require it.

You can then share this blog on social media to reach the whole internet world.

Paper is still in demand

Many people do not have access or do not want to use the internet, and that is where a printed newsletter is a big deal.

Programs to be handed out at a performance or at churches before a service or one made as an inhouse publication in a large business are still very much in demand, as well as advertisements that come in the mail.

We do both of these types of publications for people and businesses.

In fact, when someone hires us to design a website, we insert a blog into it if they wish and then teach them how to use it.

 

Go here if you would like to know more on how we Design Websites and Newsletters for Business.

 

Why Designing Newsletters is Like Building Websites

Designing Amazing Newsletters and Magazines

Designing Amazing Newsletters and Magazines

Designing Amazing Newsletters and Magazines

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Designing newsletters, magazines and books for print and digital.

I am a photographer first and always and have been for 40+ years.

I started out as a wedding photographer back in the early 70’s but found out I had curiosity and ability to photograph many things on planet earth.

I have a library of images that I have taken on landscape, wildlife and close-up macro photo’s that I think are very good.

Designing Amazing Newsletters and Magazines
Designing Amazing Newsletters and Magazines

Through wedding photography, I learned people skills. My dad had this skill also so have much to thank him for. Photography also taught me how to look at the world in very creative ways.

Later in life I turned my creative bent to the graphic design world. I went back to college and received a graphic arts degree. Soon after starting school I learned many of the same basic artistic skills I learned in photography would help me in BIG ways in the area of graphics. They are so related like kissing cousins so to speak.

 

Designing Amazing Newsletters and Magazines
Designing Amazing Newsletters and Magazines

While still in school, one of the first projects I started working on was a newsletter for a prison ministry that was called “Inside Out” and was sponsored by Central Christian Church in Mesa, Arizona.

The program I use to design the newsletter was on a program by Adobe called InDesign. Adobe is also the maker of Photoshop, Illustrator, Premier Pro and many other visual programs for professional designers and photographers.

Designing Amazing Newsletters and Magazines
Designing Amazing Newsletters and Magazines

Designing Amazing Newsletters and Magazines

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InDesign is an amazing program that lets you design multiple page layouts that are used on books, magazines and newsletters for print but also can now be turned into a eBook.

It can be a complicated program if used to its full potential. I belong to a local InDesign user group in the Phoenix area that meets every other month to help keep professional designers up-to-date on the new features Adobe is always adding to its program.

Designing Amazing Newsletters and Magazines
Designing Amazing Newsletters and Magazines

I not only did the layout of the newsletter but I also designed its logo that sits at the top of first page but I made the graphics that you will find through out every page.

I was able to experiment with many types of font usage and “call outs” and tried to improve each issue over the years.

Our newsletter staff produced 20 issues over a 5-year period.

Designing Amazing Newsletters and Magazines
Designing Amazing Newsletters and Magazines

I do miss the editorial staff that helped me collaborate on this by-monthly project.

We did it all!

From article idea’s to the writing of these article’s to the layout and finally of the printing and mailing of the finished newsletter to individual prisoners.

Thank you to Kim, Nancy and Rosie whom made this project possible on every issue. I try and stay in touch with them on a regular basis.  

Designing Amazing Newsletters and Magazines

 Click the cover to down load a PDF of that issue of the newsletter.

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