Designing for a non-English audience

By Felicia Bratu

Having worked as a digital publishing specialist at a large corporation at my previous job, I did not think being in charge of foreign language typesetting would be too difficult. After all, the layout and the images are already prepared and I only need to flow in the text - how hard could that be? I was sure that a simple Copy and Paste, or text importation, would do everything. This was my point of view when I initially began managing DTP projects in different languages.

Was I ever wrong! Through experience, I've discovered that foreign language typesetting can be very challenging - even when using the right software and platform, or having the help of a very experienced foreign typesetter. Through solving the problems encountered in the process, I also developed a new appreciation for simple, "internationalized" designs that are much easier to "localize" than others. Many problems can be avoided if the graphic designer keeps in mind that the document may be later translated into other languages. Sometimes, an attractive and very professional design in English can be a nightmare for other languages.

Therefore, it is important for designers, or the DTP persons who create the original layout, to be aware and considerate of a few simple guidelines and rules when designing documents intended for translation.

• Keep the design as light as possible. High quality photos and images add a great deal of visual interest to a design. But a heavy load of images in one document can present challenges in the foreign language typesetting process. Images that are hundreds of MB in size take time to transfer. Keep in mind that Internet bandwidth could be significantly lower in some countries, and you don't want your foreign language typesetter to spend hours to download only one picture.

• Leave plenty of white space. Non-English languages can, on average, take up 30% more space than English. If enough space has not been allotted, the foreign typesetter will be forced to reduce the font size, or change character and line spacing. Also, new pages may even need to be added. As the text will be longer and flow differently, it's possible that some images will also have to be repositioned and the entire document will look a little bit different.

• Use style sheets. Not only will this make your work easier and more consistent, it will also help the foreign typesetter.

• Try to use fonts that support foreign characters. Some of the fancy font families do not have even the most common French or Spanish accents, let alone East European languages, or others.
  
  
  

     

  1 2