The purpose of a program is to list the order of events in a performance, whether it's a school production of "Rip Van Winkle" or the philharmonic orchestra's spring concert featuring Mendelssohn's Elijah. When you create a program, your main concern should be to organize the information on the page in an attractive and accessible format so readers can immediately see what to anticipate and can easily follow the program as it proceeds. You accomplish that goal by chunking your information in various ways - with borders, with lists and with information put into blocks. Choose fonts that help to set the mood you want to create.


For a jazz concert, you would choose fonts quite different from the ones for a choral concert or a children's Christmas play. If you have access to clip art, you will find a wealth of symbols and graphics for almost any occasion. You could also choose bells and snowflakes from your dingbat or symbols menu to decorate a Christmas program, a cross on a church program or a Star of David on a Hanukkah program. But use symbols and graphics sparingly - you don't want them to overwhelm the content of the program.


Some Suggestions :


• Organize the information in the program in order of presentation and break it into separate, easy-to-follow elements.


• Leave plenty of white space around the sections of the Program.


• Put the headings in larger type.


• If your program is more than one page, try to lay the information out on two facing pages so the complete program can be seen at one time.


• Give credits or acknowledgments at the bottom of the program in slightly smaller type.