subtitle of the day

July 19, 2010

Power to the sub-editors on this one! It shows what you can do with wit, brevity and the right attitude. Kind of makes you want to buy the book. (If only it were Barry Manilow’s memoirs…) But wait! Ahhhh. That’s better. (For more Manilow, see today’s post on Baroque in Hackney.)

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there are ways to cut corners, and ways to cut corners

July 16, 2010

Next time you do something… … make sure you don’t cut the wrong corner! This came to me via a friend’s website; it was posted there for being funny, but I just think it’s depressing. Someone got PAID for making that bit of pavement! It reminds me – and all it takes is for one [...]

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the power of words

July 14, 2010

Well, on my poetry blog I posted this picture with the title, and we thought words were so important. Clearly you know these are not aborigines! But I thought it might be a good time to drag out the good old Spell-checker Poem. Eye halve a spelling chequer It came with my pea sea It [...]

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creativity: it’s in the brief.

July 12, 2010

Kingston University students Jessica Reynolds and Serena Wise have won the D&AD Student Awards with their simple, yet innovative approach to a brief by IKEA. The brief was to “promote their new catalogue by inspiring ‘a wave of boundless change in people’s homes’.” (Grandiose, or what?) You can see from the above picture what the [...]

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Direct marketers, beware

July 3, 2010

Are you sure you are engaging the people you are direct-marketing to? Here is the text of an email I just sent to a company I registered with briefly some time ago, then changed my mind and cancelled my account. I’ll tell you what I didn’t bother to tell them: that I’d had to go [...]

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cannibalising syntax in one easy lesson

July 1, 2010

Today I was looking up matters to do with a book on living frugally. I found what I needed on the US website of a certain large bookselling chain that recently withdrew from the British market – withdrew, I say, after driving other local bookshops out of business wherever it went. But that’s a different [...]

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ARSE (nsfw)

June 29, 2010

Here’s a scenario for you. I’m a PR manager. I work for a place with a very high-level brand, inspiring fierce public loyalty, but also a certain amount of mocking by detractors. It’s sad, because the first half of our name sounds like a rude word, and people use it as a rude nickname. It’s [...]

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“the view from your recession”

June 14, 2010

This from the great Andrew Sullivan. This sign in this dry-cleaners shop in Oregon just works in so many ways. First of all, it’s generous and human of them. In fact, it’s kind. It shows solidarity. I’ve seen nothing like it in London. Second, it’s great PR for the shop, because how much money do [...]

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oil spills and grammar spills

June 11, 2010

I have just read a paragraph so bad that I am going to deconstruct the whole thing for you. It’s only a drop in the ocean, too: I could do the whole article if there weren’t so much of it. Here at Text Pixels we realise the oil spill in the Gulf is a very [...]

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cut the copyeditor

May 25, 2010

Better yet, why not just let any old person do it. Get someone who doesn’t know any grammar. Then your publication can be like the Guardian, with sentences like this: “Since Jamaica achieved independence 48 years ago, there have been five state of emergencies.” And if you’ve been really lucky with your recruitment, this sentence [...]

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