Decluttering A Layout

Carl Shank • June 21, 2023

How do you go about decluttering or revamping a busy image? The image below was a local ad for a hardware store emphasizing lawn work equipment. The type should be easy to read and the graphics and fonts used should enhance the theme of the ad. I find the original ad "clunky" and hard to decipher what is really important. Is it the hardware store? Is it the lawn equipment? Is it the emphasis on servicing the local communities for quite some time?


One major problem is using fonts that are sized incorrectly for the ad to stand out to the viewer. The remade ad uses a family of fonts, namely Avenir Next Condensed in various styles. Using the same font clarifies and highlights rather than obscures the message of the flyer. While the revamped flyer is limited to one major font style, you can generally use as many as three fonts in a publication to keep it from being cluttered. Because of the variety of font styles in the Avenir Next family, we can have both display fonts and text fonts from the same basic font family.


About those graphics. The graphics chosen to illustrate lawn equipment are scattered, not sharp and stand in contention with the companies advertised — Toro, Echo, Husqvarna and Troy-Bilt. Are we supposed to focus on the companies or the products of these companies? That is unclear. The Hostetter logo is indeed central to the ad, but the hours of operation are not emphasized. I suppose the yellow marker used is suppose to highlight those times as well as long standing service to the community.


The point in a display ad such as this one is to increase readability and invite the reader to investigate what is being offered. The revamped ad does this in a clean and clear way.

Successful Layout & Design

Dutch Typography: Modern History

By Carl Shank • August 28, 2026
The early twentieth century produced an important Dutch visual culture. One of the most distinctive movements was the Amsterdam School, an expressionist architectural and decorative movement. Typography associated with the period often emphasized geometric forms, expressive lettering, unusual compositions. decorative initials, hand lettering, and architectural integration. Typography became increasingly understood as part of a larger graphic and architectural composition. Perhaps the most internationally famous Dutch contribution to modern graphic design was De Stijl. ( REFERENCE ) De Stijl was not just an art style, but a comprehensive aesthetic philosophy. It sought universal beauty, as abstracted from individual beauty, and a visual language and typography based on simplicity, geometry and primary colors, namely red, blue and yellow. Its core characteristics were the use of straight horizonal and vertical lines, the use of rectangles and squares, an emphasis on asymmetry, and the favoring of pure abstraction.

Dutch Typography: Historical Beginnings

By Carl Shank • August 28, 2026
Dutch Typography: Historical Beginnings Dutch typography has had an influence far beyond the relatively small geographic size of the Netherlands. From the early printing centers of the Low Countries to the international reputation of Dutch type designers in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, Dutch typography is characterized by craftsmanship, readability, experimentation, and a strong relationship between type and graphic design. The larger historical pattern Early Printing in the Low Countries (c. 1470–1500) . The Netherlands and Belgium were important centers of European printing almost immediately after Gutenberg. Major early centers included Utrecht, Haarlem, Leuven, Bruges, Ghent, Antwerp, and Amsterdam. Dutch and Flemish printers initially used forms derived from Gothic textura, but Roman types increasingly appeared in humanist books. A particularly important early figure was Gerard Leeu, who printed in Gouda and later Antwerp. His books demonstrate the transition from manuscript traditions toward increasingly sophisticated typographic production. Gerard or Gheraert Leeu, Leew, (between 1445 and 1450 to1492) printed what is called “incunable.” An incunable or incunabulum (pl.: incunables or incunabula, respectively) is a book or pamphlet printed in the earliest stages of European printing up to about 1500. They are distinct from manuscripts, which are documents written by hand. Some authorities on the history of printing include block books from the same time period as incunabula, whereas others limit the term to works printed using movable type. Famous incunabula include two from Mainz, the Gutenberg Bible of 1455 and the Peregrinatio in terram sanctam of 1486, printed and illustrated by Erhard Reuwich, the Nuremberg Chronicle written by Hartmann Schedel and printed by Anton Koberger in 1493, and the Hypnerotomachia Poliphiliprinted by Aldus Manutius with important illustrations by an unknown artist. Leeu printed his first (liturgical) book in May 1477 in his shop in Gouda, where between 1477 and 1484 he produced a total of about 69 books. Besides printing works in Latin and Dutch, he reprinted some of William Caxton’s editions for the English market. ( REFERENCE ) The Low Countries also developed a strong tradition of illustrated books, woodcut initials, borders, and ornamental typography.
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