Does your graphic designer actually read your text?
Over the past couple of months, I’ve seen my words mangled in various ways by designers who didn’t read them before they put them into layout. I know I’m precious about my words – after all, I did spend hours getting them just right – but I still think I’m justified in feeling a mix of horror and sadness when a designer seems to use the text as purely a visual aid. Some recent horrors include:
- squiggly arrows that pull the reader’s eye AWAY from the title of a brochure and into blank space
- a carefully chosen customer endorsement squashed in the bottom corner where no one will ever see it
- forgotten picture captions (captions are a great place to do some subtle product promotion, don’t forget them!)
- excessive use of italics (notoriously difficult to read)
- words like ‘text box’ written at the top of a text box
A great designer should not just read the words, they should understand them. Because the design and words need to work together to make the message clear. If designers read the words carefully, they can design something that increases the power of the message. But if they don’t, their designs will inevitably detract from what the words are trying to achieve.
In Denmark, this is not considered enough. Every designer should read the text. And any designers working with English copy must be able to read English well enough to really understand the ins and outs of the message.
Am I alone in thinking this is obvious?
August 8th, 2007 at 2:32 pm
It should be obvious, but as they say, assume makes an ass out of you and me.
“words like ‘text box’ written at the top of a text box”
I can’t count how many times that’s happened to me. If you mark up your copy clearly enough then you can happily hold your hands up and say ‘weren’t me guv’, but you’re always left questioning, backtracking through emails and wondering “was I really as crystal clear as I could have been?”
“Because the design and words need to work together to make the message clear.”
Yes, and the problems you describe are because more often than not, our bit (the words) is an afterthought - ok now we’ve spent €10000 designing this brochure I guess someone could think about a few words to stick in there too. Where’s that cheap intern we hired? Give him a company brochure and a dictionary and see what he can come up with, they can stick it in at the end, right?”