Feb 17 • 🗣️ General discussion
Designing a publication demands a lot of 'invisible' work
I spend hours every week looking at text on a page.
My aim is to make sure the text reads well and doesn’t bother the reader in unforeseen ways. I’m paid to design a publication, make it look professional, making sure the files are ready for print or for digital distribution.
But in that process, I read a lot of it. And when I read, I notice things. And when I notice things, the text becomes better.
Because I see inconsistencies. The writer has written ‘organisation’ here, but ‘organization’ there. They’ve used those long em-dashes a lot of times, but shorter en-dashes with some spacing sometimes. The footnote reference number is often placed after the period, but sometimes right before it.
I clean up all this. Not because I’ve been asked to, but because when someone hires me, I’m making sure that the final deliverable is as consistent and precise as a seasoned reader would expect and appreciate. Often, it’s apparent what is right and what is wrong, so I just take care of it. Other times it’s a stylistic choice that we’ll discuss. Either way, this is part of the invisible work which is raising the standards in the designs that come out the other end.
Are your standards set?
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Designing a publication demands a lot of 'invisible' work
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