Iowa Quest (Newspaper) - November 1, 1951, Iowa City, Iowa f f Th e Iowa i u w u u e b r Cause of Bad VoL XIL No. 2 School of State University of Iowa Iowa November 7, 1951! Smaller Ads Too How can small ads This question is a throwback from a talk I made at the Iowa Press convention last April at which time I advocated tion of the small Just as there must be a N mum price in job so must most shops consider a imum price or size in The problems are not ex- My thought on the matter is that every business man in a no matter how small his is entitled to the use of your advertising columns which are probably bis only effective advertising Since his advertising budget is necessarily the obvious solution to making his small count worthwhile is to sell him a larger amount of advertising at a Not larger but a group of small ones at one Don't blacksmith small Make the most of these small running them in a Remember that every small business man has dreams of a bigger and better at which time he will take his ger and better advertising and job needs to the paper which considered small account PAGE MAKE-UP Is on important operation the boys learn in the newspaper production laboratory at the State University of A student on maKe-up for a of the edition of the Written by editorial journalism the paper is printed entirely by the production May Give Trouble I have on my desk a paper-bound published by one of the larger metal com- which has proved very interesting to me. This little booklet contains a wealth of in- formation covering just about everything a printer needs to know about linotype or type There is one section titled Slug The title might have been Good There is a long list of reasons for poor It seems the metal company is trying to show that poor or dirty metal is only one of the uting factors to poor slugs and actually there are many I agree with that I hove never seen a machine which could not be made to cast good I do not mean that I have never seen poor That would be a lous But whenever I have seen a machine ing poor condition of metal was generally a point of minor Not so many years ago I worked on an old machine built about 1891. This machine solid slugs day after The operator and had been for feeding used fluxing metal is 650 The metal pot on a machine operates at 550 or 3. Time will be It takes more time to hand feed slugs and the job must be done more often than if pigs are 4. General machine nance cost will be The operator who feeds slugs is going to have duty hands and this means dirty mats and increased troubles all the way through the assembling and distribution ar- eas of the Time will be lost due to failures this increased dirt caused by introduced Use of White Space in Ads Is Termed size type shall I This is a which every printer must ask himself ever he picks up the copy for any ad or Now that we have just passed Father's I have been com- paring ads which had a ite appeal about a few suggestions with those which crowded in and prices about or what have In my the tion between type sizes and white space is Another way of saying it would most important ment in making printing is the proper use of white Many times in my experience as a foreman I have had proofs submitted to me which looked quite And I can clearly recall the amazed expressions I have provoked with a comment such looks pretty good but reset it in type a couple of sizes smaller aU the way through and see if it doesn't look even Rather than provoke an I have often that the printer hold his first setup until he had reset with smaller type and I would then leave the choice up to him as to which job or ad he would save for Size of type actually has little to do with or of most display Therefore it does not follow that smaller type will promote anymore than that large type is necessarily attention The primary in display ads is to make them attractive so that they will be Another tendency which I do Using Slug In Ad Makeup Solves Problem of Tagging What about tagging terit The man who wants to know to do about this problem 1. Concentrate on getting the j is speaking for dozens of his reader's attention to the ad and Every publisher has then creating a desire on his j experienced trouble at one time their ads should not be mail order type Most customers of newspaper shop in Here are my j or another because an insertion was A simple solution which I have Just a few weeks ago I was called into a shop where a fairly modern machine was producing slugs which were simply In this case the metal had been analyzed within recent weeks and was nearly Let us assume that the ern machine lias been adjusted so that it is perfect We now have an entirely different Everything else being which of these two machines will continue to produce good longer period of slugs over the One machine will use metal kept in A-l The other will use With equivalent routine maintenance the metal IS going to be the determining It is a generally accepted into the magazine and on the This is a maintenance 5. Shop efficiency will be Fumes are much greater Africa The content of this special issue of The Iowa Quest is printed from columns written by Henry Africa and ing regularly in the National Publisher and Mr. is a lecturer in the School of Journalism and the Newspaper Production Laboratory at the State sity of He has worked up from printer's devil to editor and publisher of his own Iowa weekly in 35 years in the Some the articles are shortened from the original Kerned Type into a pot In selecting new type jis to mark the ads by using a is a beware of from a metal pot in which slugs are being fed. These fumes will pollute the air in the shop and increase It is a known fact that as fatigue increases the accident rate also 6. Plant costs will The from a will also increase the long-range cost of keeping a shop These are some of the reasons why feeding slugs is a bad I suggest that any shop now permitting that practice consider other factors than just No. 1. One way to insure free service from your truth among machinists that machine is to feed it clean These serifs will break off when the case is slammed shut almost as easily as in a form that is machine slug on which the dates of insertion have been in Cast the set the saw at 1 VV locked too tight before about 5 ems and saw off the If you must have an ing buy from a foundry casts angle such faces on an j ing material somewhere in the all that is you may be fooling Like many another shop is more to it than meets the Here are some reasons why I think slug feeding should be I. Maintenance costs on the metal pot will be After along the side if com- a period of years it will be BOTTOM of that Then use this low face for part to see the merchandise or f the suggestion 2. Do this by means of fewer illustrations and shorter set in smaller arranged through making the most of the white Avoid making the reader read position is Keep all live ads in a central location and when the makeup man checks these slugs he need refer to no other He will very soon form the habit of grouping the ads for coming sues after which it becomes a simple matter check them i essary to remove and replace the mouthpiece and clean out the This is a fairly expensive 2. Metal will There is not enough agitation and the heat is not hot enough in a chine pot to clean metal as it is being used even though it against the work sheet or such j pears that large amount of temperature for not like is that of taking too many words to tell an ing I like to think of ad writing as though it was tele- gram Get the message down on paper and then it down to a minimum of The sales punch packed into a easily words is much more potent than a long discourse which almost requires re-reading to get a clear Newspapers are not mail order around the it other record as is used in your dross does collect on the top of for him to read through them M and wnen ads go in- the pot when slugs are fed. The arranging the elements so that the eye follows the 3. Screaming 72 point type may be effective in certain ads in consider the possibility of whispering in 18 the reader in on the secret of all this for 4. If the message requires a lot of keep the type in units so at the reader I will tackle it as being no more than a 10 or 12 point news para- graph Tather than shying away from a large body of large type which may actually contain er In this area of ad design and I there is possibility for a considerable saving in production costs in many It is needless to say that production costs are taking on greater importance now that lush post-war days are tapering off into nearly normal An ornament stuck in a between elements of the or to break up good white is out so far as I am Help the reader to and through the He is a busy PRESSES ROLL and The Quest comes to life m the newspaper production laboratory at the State University of Two students the first few sheets through the cylinder on the Whitlock press in the Worn Pinion Often Cause for Trouble Is the condition of the drive pinion This question calls attention to one of the sadly com- inexpensive parts on a linecasting The cost is around the job of replacement not too yet many machines run for years on end with the same old drive until the teeth actually becomes sharp as a This pinion operates on the large gear wheel in the center of the main cam Take a light and look at If it been replaced in the last five years chances are you can see a definite amount of wear and you will be able to feel a rowing down of the What difference does that Quite a The main load of machine operation is on that When badly worn there is always a certain amount of back lash through lifting of the at etc. That slight back necessarily apparent to the will cause a similar slight in- in the smooth ning of the drive belt to the per area of the many transpositions and assembling plus distributor especially of wide can be traced to the worn Ask your parts salesman to check the pinion for you next time he He can also tell you how to go about replacing it These most of have come up through the trade and will give you an opinion as to whether or not tilt replacement is
