Sketching out some beer labels. Fun, but I always remind myself that I'm no illustrator :-) What are you working on?

Your report is ready to be published. But there’s one small thing you can add to get it noticed. Things move slowly, then quickly. The project you’ve been working on for two years now needs to be put out there, its results shared with the world. Finally, the time has come: the paper is to be published! But it was supposed to be available, like, yesterday. You’ve been tinkering with the text document. Changed the headlines, moved some footnotes around. Rewritten the introduction 12 times. Started adding in some colours. It looks alright, but could do with some touch-up. Alas, there’s no time for design. I understand. We can’t start designing this 80-page report now and put it on the website in an hour. We’ll make sure to plan for design work next time. However, here’s what a publication designer can do in a very short time: Wrap your document in an appealing cover. You’ll export your document as it is, but the designer can make a 1, 2, or 4-page cover that envelops the document, turning it from bland to striking. This way, the work will get noticed. It will invite readers into the text and create a mood for the work. The cover can then be used in social media posts, shared in e-mails, put on posters and shared anywhere. It’s simple, quick and very effective. Cover design is not mere decoration; it’s an invitation to the reader that will be well worth the investment. If you’re looking to elevate your next report or paper with an appealing cover, let’s talk

Today, I'm doing my taxes 😣 Not much to show, I'm afraid. Are you doing anything interesting?

I just finished up a successful Kickstarter Campaign promoting a book that I designed, typeset, and produced as print-on-demand*. I used Bembo Book for the text, and Fabritius for headlines and chapter heads (it's historical fiction, so not related to typography, except in its use). Link to the Kickstarter here if you want to see: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/pandemoniumpress/the-hierarchy-of-angels *(yeah, I wrote it too...)

You’re writing a report to be designed and published, and your blocks of text need some separation from each other. You write about different things, and headings will introduce the reader to the paragraphs under them. For someone just leafing through your report, they’ll easily spot points of interest and draw them into the text. In a larger text, you might need several levels of headings. The first one is for the general theme, like a chapter title. The next one is for subheadings, for themes within the chapter. The third, and perhaps even the fourth and fifth, for examples or even deeper sectioning. STRUCTURALLY, you should look over your heading hierarchy and make sure it makes sense. Are you using the same level of heading for the same type of content beneath it? TECHNICALLY, you should define the heading with a style in your document, not just mark it and make it bigger. Using heading styles will make it clear to a designer and typesetter what level of heading you’re intending to use. Even though your Word, Pages or Google document’s headings look a certain way, it doesn’t mean it’s the way they will be formatted in the final published document. That depends on brand guidelines, design choices, opinions and technology. There are many ways to make sure headings are clearly differentiated from the normal paragraph style: They can be bigger. Obviously. THEY CAN BE IN ALL CAPS, or small caps (preferably with some good tracking between the letters). They can be bold, italic, underlined (please don’t) – or even combinations of these (oh, please don’t). They can be set in another typeface. They can be centred above the paragraphs, or indented, or outdented, or placed in the margin, or somehow moved out from the expected reading rhythm. They can be coloured, decorated or otherwise made to look different from the main typeface. Or various combinations of the above conventions can make the headings stand out. Just be consistent, so it’s easy for the reader to get that we’re moving on to another topic, or diving further down into the current one.