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

Scripts & Cursives (2)

By Carl Shank • July 31, 2026
In typographic terminology, script refers to a class of typefaces designed to emulate handwriting or calligraphy, regardless of whether letters are connected. Cursive, by contrast, refers to a style of handwriting characterized by connected, flowing letterforms developed for efficient writing. Consequently, cursive writing is one important source of script typefaces, but script typography also includes many designs that are not truly cursive. While a script typeface may connect every letter, or only certain combinations, or even none at all, cursive faces are characterized by connected letters. Thus, English Roundhand, Spencerian writing, the Palmer method, and modern school writing are all cursives. Cursive writing evolved because ancient scribes needed to write quickly.

Scripts & Cursives (1)

By Carl Shank • July 30, 2026
Scripts & Cursives. In typography and calligraphy, the terms script and cursive are related but not synonymous. They are often used interchangeably in popular usage, but type historians and calligraphers generally distinguish them by purpose, construction, and historical origin . While all cursive-inspired fonts are script typefaces, not all script faces are cursives. Thus, a calligraphic font with disconnected capitals and lowercase letters is a script font, but not truly cursive. Background . Two previous posts are a good place to start this discussion — See "Calligraphy & Typography" a t https://www.caretypography.com/calligraphy-typography . Also, see "Pen-Lettering History" at https://www.caretypography.com/pen-lettering-history . In typographic terminology, script refers to a class of typefaces designed to emulate handwriting or calligraphy, regardless of whether letters are connected. Cursive, by contrast, refers to a style of handwriting characterized by connected, flowing letterforms developed for efficient writing. Consequently, cursive writing is one important source of script typefaces, but script typography also includes many designs that are not truly cursive. Robert Bringhurst in The Elements of Typographic Style (Vancouver: Hartley & Marks, 2012) classifies script as a category of typefaces derived from handwriting and distinguishes formal and informal script traditions. He notes that "there are thousands of typefaces that stand outside the conservative and tradition-bound world of text type, and that look as if they might have been handwritten rather than drawn, carved or inscribed. Some are formal, some informal, some connected and some made of separate letters. Typographers often lump them together unscientifically as script types." (p. 193, 1992 Edition). Bringhurst says that "in general, scripts are also more closely tied to particular moods, places and times than text types are, and types that pass quickly in and out of fashion are extraneous to the subject of this book." (p. 193) He notes that scripts are important only as "setting off" a single word or line of normal text copy. He then discusses the typefaces Beowolf, Carolina, Legende, Ondine, Present and Salto. 
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