NWE Help: Web: Authoring: Design: Repetition

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Repetition can be a useful way to give your documents unity. Williams suggests repeating some aspect of your design as you build it.

No repetition

Repetition at work

The flyer above would certainly motivate someone interested in chicken to go eat at Barry's, but it isn't very coherent. You may want to refer back to this one when you check out alignment, but for now, notice how there is very little repetition here -- the font is the same, but the colors are different. Sure, there are three selling-points for Barry's, but they aren't connected graphically to Barry's.

This second flyer uses the same information, but uses repetition to provide a unifying force throughout the piece. Notice that the selling-points have been made to use the same color font as the title. Also notice that the big image has been reduced in size and substituted as a bullet icon. Now the chicken (associated verbally with "Barry's Chicken") is associated with each point, and each point is associated with the headline by its font and color.

Using repetition wisely is perhaps the most sure-fire way to make sure your document has unity, and a document that feels unified is likely to be easy to read and attractive to your audience.