Ideas for text

[pramsay13]

The customer wants to include a load of text.
Does anyone have any ideas to make it look more professional?

[Roboframer]

Reduce the font to about the size of the footnote, centre it and put it to the side of the photo, not below.

[IFGL]

What John said, also print it on a nice heavy archival paper less white than what it's on, choose a nice font.

[pramsay13]

Why to the side, John?
Is it possible to get that much engraved on metal plaque?

[caro]

centred text under the image, slightly narrower than the image

alternatively:

a column of words (as in newspaper) beside the image,

[Roboframer]

If it was just a small title aperture - or at least a lot smaller than the picture, it would be fine underneath - but it's not, there's a lot to read, like a page of a book. Make it look like an open book.

I'd have both apertures the same size .... like the pages of a book - the text aperture could be a double mount to take up some of the image space - or if you wanted a double mount anyway, the text aperture could be a triple.

If not the same size aperture then the same height if left and right or the same width if above and below.

[IFGL]

Couldn't agree more here, we find symmetry pleasing, side by side with the same size apature is perfect, please don't print it on cheap bright white paper though, this looks awful.

[pramsay13]

It does, and that's why I came on looking for ideas.
Keep them coming.

[Graysalchemy]

I agree with rob and IFGL, put it to the side and put it on decent paper, it will look far better than below IMHO.

[Rainbow]

I'd want to keep the elephant image central, as the focal point. So I'd consider splitting the text, either landscape or portrait as per the attached examples which I've mocked up on my web site: http://www.polkadotpicturesleeds.co.uk/elephant

[Rainbow]

I'd also look at using a handmade paper, something that gave the appearance of vintage paper from the same period as the photograph. I might even consider whether to have it handwritten in ink by a calligrapher, in which case the calligrapher would need to choose a suitable paper for the ink. Whatever paper I used, I'd want it to have a similar colour-tone to the photograph, but more muted so as to make the image look more prominent.

[Roboframer]

Make sure you choose the right font ........

[prospero]

A final thought.....

Don't use black for the text. Try a dark grey.

[theframer]

I use microsoft office power point you can change the background colour so its not white

[benjiman grapes]

Use InDesign to have more control over the text layout.

But if Word is all you have then copy/paste into a text box. You can use the justify settings to level the left and right sides. This will square off the body of the text and look much better in an aperture. Far better than just being left justified etc.

Choose a more professional looking font too.
Stay away from comic sans and anything to fancy looking as it won't work as a body text.
Century Gothic is a smooth clean font.

[Glimpse]

Personally, I'd ask an experienced graphic designer for advice... And as an experienced graphic designer, here's my two pen'orth!

It doesn't matter what application you use, if you understand a bit about composition and typography, all publishing packages allow sufficient control to give a good result. InDesign is what professional designers like myself use, but it is pro-level software so is prohibitively expensive for most occasional users.

The main thing to remember is that everything is subjective, so I'd suggest 3 different layouts and a few typeface options and let the client decide.

Print them size-for-size so they can be viewed in situ. If that's not possible, I've sometimes asked for a photo of the wall, a few measurements and made a scale mockup in Photoshop. People can be a bit clueless as to what things will look like on a wall, and bear in mind, it will probably be viewed from further away than when reading a book.

If I were doing it it, I'd probably start with a trad sans-serif 'body text' font like Baskerville. I'd increase the leading over standard body text to make it appear lighter and more welcoming for the reader. A neat trick on this sort of thing is to force justify the text but centre the final line... Sommat like this...

[silvercleave]

but without hyphenations, please

[benjiman grapes]

No orphans.
No widows.

Not the only designer here.

[IFGL]

I absolutely hate orphans!

[Glimpse]

Apologies for leaving those in on the Lorem Ipsum text, of course, it goes without saying, hence my suggestion to "force justify"...