Halloween a door for creativity, be careful of cliché  

It’s tempting to use special occasions as an excuse to use outrageous colors and over-do your holiday spirit, but this Halloween, please keep it classy. A little orange and black never hurt anyone, but that doesn’t give you license to use Chiller on every page. Keep Halloween scary for all the right reasons with these simple do’s and don’ts. 
 
Do: Use a display typeface once in a while. If you’re hosting a zombie dance party, it’s OK to use a wacky typeface like Chiller for the name of the party on the poster or invite. 

Don’t: Over-do it. The worst thing about display type is that it’s hard to read when there’s too much of it. Display fonts are okay for titles or names, but not for the rest of the text. Pair your funky typeface with something simple and clean like Century Gothic in the smaller text.
 
Do: Use orange and black Halloween colors to accent. Colors will tie your audience immediately to the holiday they are associated with. You don’t have to write “THIS IS ABOUT HALLOWEEN,” if you are already hinting at it with your color choices.

Don’t: Publish a bunch of orange text. This might be the one day where I would say I’m OK with printing black text on orange paper, but hey, it’s a holiday, right? Don’t publish orange text on white paper, though — it’s messy, hard to read, and color ink is expensive.
 
Do: Use a really sweet Halloween illustration. They’re cool, relatable, and people like them. Sometimes it’s just plain fun to have something nice to look at. You’ll probably even have fun doing it — illustrations are a nice break from the daily grind of newspaper graphs.  *
Don’t:* Use cheesy clip-art. If you want to put spiderwebs in a couple corners, I guess that’s OK. But if you’re going to run an illustration in print, make it a nice one. Take the time to make it detailed and interesting so that your viewer will come back to it, discovering new things each time. Don’t make it easily glanced-over and forgotten. 
 
Do: Wear your Halloween costume to work (especially if it’s Tigger). It’ll be a nice change of pace, and might even spark some hidden creativity and inspiration on the most auspicious of days.

Don’t: Wear your Halloween costume to work any other time of the year. It’s just weird.