My sweet mother rarely sends me an e-mail without a semicolon in it. She loves that little piece of punctuation. I’ll give her credit though; 99 percent of the time she uses it correctly.
For writers and editors, the semicolon is a must for adding variety to our words. But not everyone is a fan of the “supercomma” as it’s called by some. Is it stronger than a comma? Weaker than a period? Kinda.
Here are four common (and correct) ways to use a semicolon:
First, the obvious: Magazines set out to tell a story.
Then: But the words you see printed on the page are only part of the tale. Those of us trained as writers and editors (and many in the general population) usually think that a “story” is told with written or spoken words.
But just think how a verbally told story is enhanced by these factors:
Similarly, your sense of a magazine article is also enhanced by its setting — the page layout.
I talked to our design team recently about the importance of white space in magazine design. I’ve marked up a spread with their comments on Flickr.
Most of us at Hammock Inc. read voraciously. Recently some of us talked about our favorite books.
Editor Megan Pacella is spending the summer with the classics:
…. I’m working on books that most people had to read in high school or college, but I never did. Right now I’m working my way through 1984. After that it’s Catch-22, and then Walden.
IT Guy Patrick Ragsdale is undecided about summer reading, but he knows his favorite of all time, Isaac Asimov:
I haven’t decided what to read during my summer vacation this year. Since I won’t be vacation until September I still have some time to decide. I may choose something based on what people say here.
My favorite all time books go way, way back to The Foundation Series by Isaac Asimov. Not exactly Pulitzer Prize stock, but at age 12 this stuff really got me going. I’ve read the series several times since then. Actually led me to name my son Isaac. More recently I’d say that I’m prone to more technical reading. Books on system administration are pretty exciting. They’re just like Guy Noir Private Eye pulp fiction.
We enjoy our work here at Hammock Inc., and we get a great deal of satisfaction from knowing that it’s done well. But we won’t lie and tell you we don’t enjoy a pat on the back from time to time. So we’ve been grinning all day at our recent mention in Folio:, the magazine of the magazine industry.
The article on Folio:’s website details our work in redesigning and repositioning American Spirit, the member magazine we publish for the National Society Daughters of the American Revolution.
Read on to see how we helped the DAR:
Hammock Inc.’s client, the National Society Daughters of the American Revolution, is exhibiting a collection of newly acquired documents related to one of the Revolutionary War’s unsung heroes, General Henry Knox. Recently, Rex Hammock visited DAR archivist Tracy Robinson to learn more about Knox and the collection on display.
Happy Fourth of July!
The late NBC political bureau chief Tim Russert, who passed away last week, was famous for the behind-the-scenes preparation he put into interviews on his weekly show, “Meet the Press.” He never interviewed politicians without knowing every stance they’d taken, every vote they’d cast or every statement they’d made on the record. Even America’s most celebrated interviewer, Barbara Walters, doesn’t wing it. After poring through research on her subject, she jots her questions down on index cards, and shuffles and reshuffles until she finds the right order.
Maybe your next interview isn’t with a politician or a celebrity, but preparation is still important because it gives you the credibility you need to connect with whomever you interview. Sure, you’ll run into some sound-bite-friendly folks who are natural talkers and will give you great quotes no matter what you ask. But it’s a better bet that you’ll have to deal with awkward silences, canned responses, hidden agendas and occasional egos—so you must be ready. Read on for five tried-and-true steps we use to prepare for an interview.
When you receive a magazine in the mail, or purchase one at the newsstand, it’s easy not to notice the many elements in common that most magazines share. There is a bit of science behind the art of building a good cover. Check some recent covers we have published to see our notes on the science of a cover — the standard elements that most covers share in common:
But the art of a cover remains more elusive, more difficult to nail down. The same elements go into a mundane magazine cover and into an award-winning one. What’s the difference between blah and wow?
I asked Jamie Roberts, our editorial director, and Kerri Davis, our art director, to give me some insight into the thoughts and planning that go into an award-winning magazine cover.
Hammock has some really talented designers — and I’m not one of them. So I asked our art director, Kerri Davis, to help me understand what goes into the font choices designers make when they’re laying out a spread in a magazine.
I tend to think things I don’t understand are just magic — don’t we all? But Kerri shared with me the guidelines she follows as she starts her work. The end result still looks magic to me, but we can all learn from the method behind it.
I took Kerri’s notes and marked up two spreads that I posted on Flickr. Click over to see her thoughts.
More: Seth Godin also had a great post this week on using fonts and type effectively.
A magazine article is only as good as its source. But breaking into unfamiliar territory to find the perfect source is no easy task. Where do you turn when searching for a source takes you on a wild goose chase? After a number of trials and errors, we’ve adopted a few general rules to help us find good sources fast.
Here are some tips that work for us:
In the corporate world, design and logo guidelines are standard. Companies and associations set up rules about how the logo may be used, for instance, or what colors are acceptable in company memos. Many organizations will just provide standard templates for spreadsheets, written documents and emails.
But what about your words? Does your organization need a standard style guide for the words in your written documents? If your publications don’t use a style guide, follow along with me for a few moments. Even presentations, advertisements and other printed materials benefit from a standard written style.