Print VS Online Print. Can you spot the differences ?

Most people didn't realize that online print has different aspect of design compared to print. But there is differences. While both has the same purpose , but they carry themselves in different manner.

First noticeable thing when it come to print is that the the picture complement with words as they work together to convey meaning( Schriver 1997). But for online print, theory of multimodality (Walsh 2006) is applied where multiple form of medium helps convey a message. Such medium may range from music to pictures to hyperlinks to videos.

Secondly, the text is usually shorter for online print. This reduces readers left-to-right eye movement and thus make the online print reader friendly.(Parker 2003). Another noticeable difference is that the most important information is placed at the top left corner of a page. This is because read online print in F-shape pattern. (Nielsen, 2006)

In conclusion , when designing for print or online print, text alone is not enough. For print, it is better to have images and text to convey meaning. As for online print, it is advisable to incoportae video and musics ,hyperlink to make the online medium more intereactive.



Nielsen, J 2006, F-Shaped Pattern For Reading Web Content, Jakob Nielsen Alertbox, viewed 4 June 2009, <http://www.useit.com/alertbox/reading_pattern.html>.

Parker, RC 2003, Looking good in print, 5^th edn, Paraglyph Press, Arizona.

Schriver, KA 1997, Dynamics in document design: creating texts for readers, Wiley Computer Publication, New York.

Walsh, M 2006, ‘Textual shift’: Examining the reading process with print, visual and multimodal texts,” Australia Journal of Language and Literacy, vol.29, no.1,p24-37