In many reports, especially in professional settings, you'll want or need to present information in two-page spreads. In some cases, both pages are all text. Other times, both pages are all art. Sometimes you'll have text and art on both pages.


It helps to think of the spread as four quadrants to balance your use of text and art pleasingly. You may occasionally have a whole report of two-page spreads, but generally you'll want to have some variety within the overall design. Although readers never actually see the dotted lines dividing the quadrants that underlying grid controls the final appearance of each two-page spread and thus unifies the look of the entire document.


Some Suggestions :


• Try to balance the facing pages so as to avoid having a lopsided spread - as would happen if A and C were text and Band D were art, or vice versa.


• A report done as two-page spreads needs to be bound, such as with plastic comb binding or a three-ring binder. When binding the report, leave the inside margins at 1.5 inches instead of 1 inch. With print on both sides of the paper, you might want to use a little bit heavier stock so that the print from one side of the page cannot bleed through to the other.


• Make sure you number the pages properly. This will keep the two-page spreads together. Left-hand pages are even-numbered pages. Right-hand pages are odd-numbered pages.


• Make sure your artwork is not crowded by the text or vice versa. A good rule of thumb is that there always should be at least one inch of white space between art and text.


• Provide a caption for each piece of art or each graphic so that the reader who is just flipping through the pages of the report still has an idea what the visuals are saying.