Sunday 1 February 2009

I’m a text supremacist because…


ONE
Before you design your logo, before you communicate anything, you have to know what you are and what you want to say. Your message and the way your business feels are first captured in words. Well it’s in someone’s brain first, as a concept, but then it gets written down.

TWO The way your business looks, from the colours to the website and the office sign, communicates your message and your feel. The people who design this stuff have to know what you seek to say. That’s why you have to start with point one.

THREE I think you should write your website text before you create the design. A website is a piece of communication. It should be designed to enable people to read it, use it, understand the message and experience the feel of your business. It’s illogical that the words come last and get rushed because everyone's had enough and just wants to go live, now!

FOUR I would love to see more well designed text online. Huge swathes of blocky, fully justified text looks dull and can be difficult to read. I think some sort of online typesetting revolution is in order.

FIVE I think you should only ever employ designers who can, and do, read and understand the words you give them to turn into newsletters, websites and printed communications.

Wo ho, text is best.

1 comment:

Brenda said...

Completely agree. Today everyone seems to want flash or animated stuff on their sites - I have experienced doing mockups of websites where we just plop-in some made up text done by the webdesigner and the client barely blinks to think about what it says and is it really communicating who they are - they just love that is moves....