Ever admired the sturdy, classic capitals stamped across Time magazine, or the curvy vintage nameplate on the cover of the Rolling Stone? Does the fanciful feel of New York magazine or the luxurious look of Vogue entice you to open it up and dive inside? If so, then the typeface of that magazine has done its job. Though typeface — the style of printed characters on a page — might sound like design jargon, it plays a starring role in how a story, design and publication are received by its audience. Each comes with a family of fonts in bold, italic, condensed and other forms. With the right fonts, designs can tell a story, express ideas, evoke emotion and engage readers. With the wrong ones, they can distract or confuse readers, enough to prevent them from finishing an article or picking up a publication ever again.
When selecting typefaces for Web or magazine projects, our designers consider everything from the amount of text to the message, emphasis and style of a publication. Many of these typefaces are chosen early in the process and draw from a family of fonts, which are used throughout our publications repeatedly to create continuity.
I’ve been staring at a blank Word document for at least 20 minutes. And now, finally, after thinking of 10 different ways I could start this blog post, I decided to just write it already. This happens every time I try to write anything — a feature article for MyBusiness, a Class Act profile for American Spirit or even an e-mail to a client. But most days, I don’t have more than five minutes to organize my thoughts and get cracking on an assignment. Here are my methods for beating writer’s block:
Hammock Inc. prepares for ASAE Annual Meeting and Expo
Several members of the Hammock Inc. team will be in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, in mid-August to attend the 2009 Annual Meeting and Expo of the American Society of Association Executives and the Center for Association Leadership.
We’ve been busy in the office today finding the perfect spot to showcase our newest trophy — the Gold Azbee award we won at last night’s American Society of Business Publication Editors awards banquet for MyBusiness, the magazine we publish for and with the National Federation of Independent Business.
4 ways to find interesting Tweeters to follow
Perhaps you’re new to Twitter, or maybe you’ve been on Twitter for a couple of years now and just want to find a few new people to follow. What’s a tweep to do?
While much has been said recently about certain Twitter users hitting 500,000 and even 1,000,000,000 followers, we believe it’s the quality of the folks you are following — not the quantity — that will make your use of Twitter the most beneficial and effective.
And while you’re finding new folks to follow, be sure to follow us: @hammockinc.
Association members are increasingly turning to association websites for news, networking and resources, which is why tracking these visits is fundamental to managing a successful site. Here are three reasons why it’s so important for associations to have Google Analytics running on their sites:
5 Questions to Ask Each Month
Have you looked at your website this month? We look at hammock.com every single day. We strive for at least one piece of new content each day of the week. While not every site requires that the content be quite so dynamic, there are things that you should check at least once a month for function, content and freshness.
At Hammock we support partners who, like us, have a heart for the environment. Today we congratulate printing partner Quad/Graphics on receiving LEED certification for their manufacturing facility and headquarters in Sussex, Wis. Quad prints MyBusiness magazine for our client the National Federation of Independent Business.
This environmental accomplishment is part of an ongoing effort by Quad to transform all of its manufacturing sites to green buildings. The U.S. Green Building Council created the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) Green Building Rating System to set standards for environmentally sustainable construction.
We applaud Quad’s commitment to the environment and wish them luck on their green mission as they continue to work to make their nine other facilities LEED-certified too.
Our inboxes lately have been full of great reminders that we all need to wait just a minute before hitting the send button.
Whether you’re sending a quick note to a colleague, an e-newsletter to hundreds of subscribers or anything in between, the following reminders serve as a good refresher:
When words like “elegant,” “inviting” and “grand” are used to describe us and our work, you know we have to tell you about it.
Hammock Inc. — and the publications we create for our clients — was recently awarded several APEX 2009 Awards, including a coveted Grand Award.
The Grand Award, Magazines and Journals category, was given for the January/February 2009 issue of American Spirit, the national magazine we publish for the Daughters of the American Revolution.