BASED ON A TRUE STORY
The scriptorium (writing room) at the Abbey of Our Lady of Perpetual Wordage, 835 A.D.. Monks are seen diligently copying text into new volumes. The chief scribe, Brother Mark, is meeting with Brother John about the Abbot’s new book, which he hopes will become a new best-seller. Brother John has been transcribing it for the last several weeks. Continue reading
A manuscript you submit to a publisher or literary agent will follow certain guidelines — plain fonts, black text on white paper, no fancy formatting, generous margins and double-spaced lines. Individual publishers have their own preferred submission format, which you’ll find quite easily on their website. Any of these apply when you submit to an agent, because variations are minor. Writer’s Digest has a wealth of information you can browse.
But what if you plan to self-publish? Continue reading
For a typical author, it’s all about the content. That’s as it should be. Creating a book of any kind, whether it’s a novel, a how-to, or a travel book, takes a tremendous amount of creativity, thought and hard work. The last thing an author wants to think about, usually, is the mechanics of production or how the finished product will look. It’s all there in deathless prose, in that big Microsoft Word or Apple Pages file. The work is done. What else could there be? Continue reading
I’ve mentioned before that it’s important to choose your typefaces (not “fonts,” which are particular styles, like bold or italic, of a given typeface) carefully and not simply accept the defaults offered by Microsoft Word or PowerPoint. This goes for your business letters and for your advertising, packaging and signage. Continue reading
When I’m consulting with businesses about the “look” of their corporate communications, one of the hot questions is always, “Which font should we use?” In an earlier Creative Tips post I touched on this subject as far as saying “At least don’t use the defaults” without going into much detail as to how you would decide on one.
Most companies, except for some very large ones, prefer to stick with the fonts that come with their computer, or with their Office software suite, whether it’s Microsoft Office, Google Docs, Libre Office or something else. But, even so, click on that Font drop-down arrow and the list goes on and on. Does it matter which one you use? How would you know? And what about headings – should they use a different typeface, or a larger version of the same one used for text? Continue reading
There are some things you should never do when typing documents in Microsoft Word, Apple Pages or any other word processing app. Some of these avoidables may be deeply-ingrained habits. Some may invoke a cry of, “But I’ve always done it that way and nobody ever complained!” All of them will lead you down a slippery slope, into bad typographic neighborhoods from which few return unscarred. Best to just say “No” in the first place.
Here is one that’s not hard to fix, and will make your business letters look just that much more professional than your competitor’s (who, it must be pointed out, doesn’t read this blog). Continue reading
Trade shows are an important way for many businesses to reach their audience and generate interest in their products, but they have an equally important downside: they’re a very expensive investment. Unless you can coax jaded, footsore show attendees into your display, you can’t even get a conversation started. And that can mean your big investment just went up in smoke. For a graphic designer, that’s a challenge and an opportunity. In the case of Anna Elyse, the brand name under which fashion designer Annie Sokoloff markets her innovative line of bridesmaid dresses, it was also a chance to work with someone who is ferociously creative in her own right. Continue reading
By now, if you read the last post, you’re starting to think that designers seems to place as much importance on the spaces around and between things as on the things themselves. And you’re right.
One of the great concert pianists of the 20th Century once remarked that what defines a great performer is not the notes he or she plays, but the spaces between them. The same could be said about text, which includes everything from novels to business letters to the way you lay out your resumé. Good spacing can make a document look more attractive and inviting to read. Bad spacing can make your reader feel uncomfortable or annoyed, or even make them skip the whole thing. Continue reading
Space: it may well be the Final Frontier, because when it comes to documents it’s clear that it was never taught in high school. I think we were only ever flunked on content, and so we fixated on the text and forgot the page it was sitting on.
When you write a letter, a proposal to management, a resume or a promotion piece for your business, you put a great deal of thought and time into ensuring it says exactly what you want to say. It’s so good it will knock the reader’s socks off. IF anyone actually reads it.
So what would make someone not want to read your exquisitely crafted prose? What would put them off before they even start? Continue reading
To hear most Internet marketers and email marketers tell it, you’d think the only things that exist are the ‘Net and email. Snail mail? What’s that? But here in the real world, people who actually have to build successful companies know that’s not the whole story. Not by a long stretch. Continue reading
