A week hardly passes that my team and I are not presented with this hot debate: Should the newspaper separate columns with vertical rules, or is it better to just let white space create the lines of demarcation between columns of text?
Newspaper designers have been discussing this for decades, and the results of such discussions have not advanced us much. Why? Because there are good arguments on both sides of the column rule.
Historically, the more classically designed newspapers, such as The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, Frankfurter Allgemeine, Die Zeit and The Times of London, displayed vertical column rules as a way to create order, move the eye up and down the page, and separate unrelated stories. As newspapers started to redesign in the late 70s and beyond, one of the first things to disappear — a way of designers telling readers “this is the new wave of clean, uncomplicated pages” — was the vertical rule. While they did not disappear totally (because a die-hard editor or publisher put his foot down and did not allow it), vertical rules became almost invisible, set as .5 or even .3, but remained on the page.
When the so called “retro” movement of the 1990s kicked in, vertical rules made a triumphant comeback, seen as classic, meritorious of space, an indication that the newspaper that carried them was a serious, respectable publication. And so, papers like the much admired National Post of Canada carried elegant column rules, not only vertically but horizontally as well. Suddenly, rules were back. Newspapers of all sizes ran to their archives, rescued the rules that had laid dormant for years, and put them back.
Readers, to be honest, sort of napped through all of this, I am sorry to say.
Benefits of column rules:
• They bring order to inside pages and separate unrelated articles when two headlines butt against each other.
• Visually, the rules offer a page a sense of architectural harmony, guiding the eye from top to bottom (which is natural for the reader, but which the rules emphasize, just in case reader intuition fails).
• It is easier to design an inside page (with advertising) when rules are part of the design.
Do the benefits outweigh the disavantages? Hard to say.
Disadvantages:
• Rules must stop somewhere, and on a page with short texts, the rules start and stop, start and stop, creating a bit of havoc if not handled properly.
• Rules become too important if they are too heavy. I suggest the almost invisible rules of half point. Anything more than that can be a nuisance on the page.
• If one uses vertical rules, it is almost mandatory that one uses horizontal ones as well. A page is either defined totally by white space, or by the presence of rules.
Some tips:
Perhaps you decide to use rules everywhere thorugh the newspaper EXCEPT on page one and on covers. Yes, I know this is a debatable solution, but one that I have used successfully many times. Page one and section fronts normally have clearly established parameters, and white space is of greater benefit here than rules.
Make the rules thin.
Determine when rules stop, and how they are utilized in the case of placemenet next to a boxed item. Careful here, to avoid lines against more lines.
Determine the role of vertical/horizontal rules next to advertising content. I recommend that you keep them in order to separate items.
Don’t look at vertical rules as a “fashion” design item — useful today, gone tomorrow. Instead, analyze them for how they can become functional within the design you have established for your newspaper’s content and style.
–All or a portion of this column was originally published in the IFRA newsletter
