Help with units of measurement please - design for newspaper
Morning all,
First of all, the nomenclature used for design on newspaper is new to me, so please excuse me if I'm totally out to lunch here.
We're doing a two page ad that runs at the bottom of each page. Pretty simple, but the units given to us are a little perplexing, 40 agates high by 21 columns wide. Agate, at 5.5 pt each give me 220 pts high, but I'm at a loss as to what the "21 columns" implies.
I stumbled onto something that indicated that 1 column was equal to 14 agate, and something else that implied that this is not set in stone.
The rep at the paper seems MIA and we need to get this to them today and is further complicated by the fact that I am stepping in for another (now gone) designer who has created single page ads in the past, but the dimensions of those files don't ad up either.
Any insight?
22.Feb.2008 6.10am
The width seems to be 10 columns per page plus one added for the innermargins.
Over here in the Netherlands columns have been standardized for years — 40 mm per, with a 2 mm substraction for required whitespace (substracted for the total).
Don't know about the US-situation ; )
. . .
Bert Vanderveen BNO
22.Feb.2008 6.35am
Are they printing this newspaper on a Vandercook? It's been a long while since I've done newspaper ads, but from what I recall, they used good ol' inches and centimeters for their ad sizes. You'd think a newspaper would make it as easy as humanly possible to help people get paid ads into their publication.
22.Feb.2008 7.17am
This kind of stuff can vary wildly from newspaper to newspaper (I’ve been told that here in DC some newspapers even vary their definition of Agate!). If I were you I would call the switchboard and not get off the phone until someone provided an answer.
22.Feb.2008 9.56am
No matter what units a publication uses, I always insist they translate it into inches for the particular ad I'm designing--and if they resist, I get my client, who's paying for it, to lean on them. Luckily plain old inches seem to be more common now for newspapers and magazines.
24.Feb.2008 10.59pm
The Glossary of Typesetting Terms (University of Chicago Press, 1994) states:
Agate. [1] A type size of approximately 5 and 1/2 points, 14 lines to the inch. Now used most commonly as a unit of measurement in newspaper advertising. [2] Agate line, a unit of measurement equaling 1/14 of one column inch.
Column inch. A unit of measurement one column wide by one inch deep, used in ordering and pricing newspaper advertising space.
25.Feb.2008 7.24am
> I stumbled onto something that indicated that 1 column was equal to 14 agate, and something else that implied that this is not set in stone.
In the newspaper industry, it is. 1 column inch (not 1 column) = 14 agate lines (exactly ... forget the 5.5 point stuff).
Another term you might run into is double truck, which is two full facing pages. Sort of what you have, but not the full height.
Back in the days when newspapers were kings, many papers had a rule that your ad could not be more than one column wide per 10 agate lines of height. These days, they will sell pretty much whatever they can.
25.Feb.2008 3.09pm
The US newspaper industry is all over the map with column widths - they tried to standardize but it certainly did not happen. I wish.
Get the specs in inches or millimeters or whatever you are comfortable with.
pbc
26.Feb.2008 1.48pm
The SAU grid, or Standard Advertising Unit, is dead.
26.Feb.2008 5.24pm
Newspapers are getting smaller. Narrower to be specific. A full page ad in New York Times used to be 13" x 21" now it is 11.5" x 21".
LA Times used to be 11.5" x 21.5" now it is 10.88" x 21.5".
Ink coverage has dropped also - LA Times is now 220 Dmax. I guess when you add all that up you save a bit of money.
pbc
27.Feb.2008 7.35am
We advertise in 19 papers in my surrounding area and I have to create 7 different ads due to size difference. They're all 5 columns x 7 inches but that varies up to 1.5 inches.
You'd think it'd be standardized a bit more.