As a graphic designer and a student, I cannot help but drop my head whenever I see improper use of typography. It’s everywhere. But what truly makes me cringe is the logo I see whenever I tune into my weekly guilty pleasure, Glee:
The kerning is unpleasant and it’s obvious. Kerning, the spacing between letters, is normally judged by your eye rather than mechanically. The negative space in between the letters should be relatively even. This reads “g-lee.” As minor as some might find this to be, I cannot stand it!
It is very difficult to watch for the two seconds the Glee logo appears on screen and I know I’m not the only Gleek who feels this way…
Perhaps this was purposefully done and I’m sure there was a motive, but it has brought discomfort and grief to my Tuesday evenings. So please, Ryan Murphy and Co., take the time to kern your letters! There are only four of them.
Look—a Frequently Asked Questions page is included in the site architecture! This will be a great place to give information and answer questions for users. Let’s go! FAQ away!
But hold your questions for a minute. Is an FAQ really a necessary part of your site?
An FAQ section is necessary if it:
Educates users about service or product
Keeps users engaged with site
Gages effectiveness of content
An FAQ section isn’t necessary if it:
Act as a substitute for clear, useful content
Doesn’t add value because questions aren’t real or aren’t asked
If content clearly tells users everything they need to know, an FAQ doesn’t need to happen. If your organization is asked the same questions over and over—it might be a sign to adjust your site content, not add to your list of frequently asked questions.
Good pairings help make for a complete, thoughtful experience. The icing on the cake, if you will. Though cakes, with the exception of coffee cake, need icing. They just do.
Now that you’re thinking about cake, let’s jump to dinner. Dinner is fun! Especially when you’re able to consider a wine to drink with your dinner (perhaps pairing acidity to heaviness), or a beer to drink with another dinner (bitter and hoppy plays well with heavier dishes). Pairing can elevate a meal. Similarly, well paired fonts can make a good design.
The purpose of pairing fonts is to improve readability and establish hierarchy. The classic serif-with-a-sans-serif combination is used on print and web, often with the headline as the sans-serif font. It works because it grabs attention, but more importantly, it’s easy to read.
The ease-of-reading factor is key in font pairing. (And ideally, in choosing a font in general.) When readability becomes an issue, communication becomes an issue. This is to be avoided. Using fonts that are legible on screen or when printed is always a good place to start. If you find a font combination that works both online and in print, you have made magic and deserve cake.
But note! Two fonts looking good together does not equal good design. There are images and layouts and format to consider. Consult your local graphic designer for more information.
Party Like a Copywriter fact: Writers always love to talk about writing. Or write about writing.
The great Lee Clow’s Beard Twitter stream aside, Advice to Writers on Twitter has been a great source of writing advice. Some of the bits I’ve enjoyed:
Always carry around a notebook. If you don’t write it down, it’s gone. STEWART O’NAN #amwriting#writing#writetip
Good copywriting tells the facts, supports a brand, and speaks to an audience. Great copywriting becomes something bigger—part of our memories, part of an era.
William Bernbach, David Ogilvy, and Lee Clow are just three who have created campaigns that have become just that, cultural references. Take a look
Known for: The “At 60 miles an hour the loudest noise in this new Rolls Royce comes from the electric clock” headline, tasting blood through direct advertising*
Once said: “Don’t bunt. Aim out of the ball park. Aim for the company of immortals.”
Lee Clow
Known for: Apple’s 1984 commercial, the Energizer Bunny, Taco Bell Chihuahua.
Once said: “Great brands have a story, our job is to tell them.” (Lee Clow, or more specifically, @leeclowsbeard, has more to say about advertising, creativity, and ideas on Twitter.)
Known for: Pitching ideas and doing whatever he pleases as a partner at Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce
Once said: “Just think about it deeply, then forget it…then an idea will jump in your face.”
Who else do you think has contributed to part of our culture through good copywriting? Tell us in the comments!
*Ogilvy took on a client who had $500 to spend on the promotion of his new hotel. Ogilvy bought as many postcards as $500 would purchase and mailed invites to people listed in the phone book. The hotel was packed at opening. “I had tasted blood,” he later said of the experience.
A frequently updated company blog can accomplish several goals, including improved search engine rankings; driving brand awareness; increased website traffic; and helping position your business as an industry leader. But it’s not always easy to come up with ideas for blog posts. Here are six ways that might help. read the full story...
Stefan Wissenbach has a mission: to help others take control of their lives, achieve more in life than ever thought possible, and have a lot of fun along the way. To do that, he and his UK team created Magic Number — and sought an agency to help make this dream a reality. After months of hard work and collaboration between EIM and the Magic Number team, we are excited to announce the beta launch of Magic Number.
Watch the video!
In just a few easy steps, anyone can get their Magic Number — the amount of money they will need to make work optional when, and how they want. A fully interactive experience guides each user through their own vision of how they want to live: what kind of house they want to live in, how they want to spend their time, what they want for their family, and much more.
After receiving your Magic Number, the website provides insights and guidance to help make your dream a reality. Future releases of the website will provide enhanced tools for keeping track of your vision and goals.
In late 2012, a Goal Manager will be released, to help “break down your big endeavors into manageable tasks.” Upcoming releases will also include a Habit Tracker to help stay on task toward your Magic Number; and a Vision Board to help you visualize what’s really important to you, and to keep you motivated.
To celebrate the beta launch, Magic Number is giving the first 2,500 subscribers a free lifetime membership. That means you get your Magic Number, and get to experience all the great upcoming tools and features, free and forever. We’ve all signed up, and shared with our family and friends, and we encourage you to as well! read the full story...
It happens all the time. Really, it does. You know, those times when you watch that short flash animation over and over again on a website. Or think about how many of those “how-to” videos you watch in order to use something you just bought, try a new recipe, or just because it makes you laugh.
That’s the power of implementing motion graphics to “move” your brand. It has a way of capturing our attention. It pulls you in and takes you along for the ride.
Motion design has a way of telling a great story like no other medium. Through the combination of movement, stunning visuals, and music, you can connect with your consumer on a very personal level. And in doing so, you will strengthen your brand and your message. For example, a well done web video on a company’s homepage can set the tone of their brand and quickly build interest within the viewer. These first few seconds a viewer spends on your page is vital and more often than not will decide whether they will stay or continue on to somewhere else.
Motion design is memorable. Yes, that song you’ve been humming all day is from that TV advertisement you watched before you left home. You were drawn into it for that brief moment and it stirred up emotions that made an impact on your day. That’s pretty powerful stuff.
Beyond television, more and more we are realizing that the general public is getting a lot of their information and recommendations from online sources such as YouTube. For example, a company that makes a specific product could create their own “how-to” videos and connect with their consumers. Or a company that provides services could create a video series in which they educate their consumers and eventually become known as the “leading expert” in their profession. read the full story...
Adding user-generated content to your website is not something you’re unfamiliar with. These days, most websites have some form of user-generated material on their site, whether it be text, images, or video. But what if we took that to the next level and utilized those images provided by your clients, customers, or brand evangelists and incorporated them into your actual website or digital marketing photography?
Instagram, a free iPhone app–and other products like it–have made this possible. Recently, I’ve downloaded the Instragram app and have gone crazy turning my photos into fun, professional looking shots. The app allows you to create a blurred background, as well as apply treatments like black and white, sepia, etc. These photos are then shared via Instagram’s own social network, as well as Facebook and Twitter. What better images are there than those taken by your customers, in action using your product, service, or visiting your restaurant, bar, etc? There has always been the argument that user-generated images won’t be a high enough resolution, but there are even software programs now that can turn those low-res images into high-res (our fave: Alien Skin Blow Up 2. Funny name, I know).
At EIM, we assist our clients in running social media campaigns, sometimes contests with photo submissions. What if we took that one step further and turned those photos into digital artwork that we can use in our marketing efforts? We may have just cut back on photo shoot costs or stock imagery, and created a truly unique user-generated experience. Featured here are a few of my favorite images we shot at a client’s rooftop lounge. You just may see these on their website or in their latest print ad in the near future!
No, really. Unless you’re using a typewriter (which, although awesome, is arguably not terribly modern), there’s no need to insert an extra space after a sentence. At all.
It was standard to use two spaces after a sentence with a typewriter because typewriter fonts aren’t proportional. Because the letters are all the same width, using two spaces makes the document easier to read. With proportional fonts, using two spaces after a sentence makes a large, lonely gap—so documents are more difficult to read. Sentences are social and like to be near each other. Don’t separate.
Copywriters know this, as they have generally spent hours of their lives deleting extra spaces. And it’s tedious, soul-destroying work that wears down the copywriter’s faith in humanity and delete key alike. Please, stop superfluous spacing and spare your copywriter this agony!
Two spaces after a sentence: not a party.
One space after a sentence: raging party.
