Due to popular demand and a large number of requests, I have finally adopted my “18 Rules for Using Text” post into 20×30 poster format! No matter what kind of document you produce–a memo, flier, brochure, proposal, PowerPoint–you should know the most fundamental rules for designing with text. This list
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A renewed debate has emerged on the safety of vaccines and their overall benefit to society. Several articles have surfaced this week in CNN, USA Today, NPR, the Huffington Post, and Washington Post, to name a few, that have all argued in favor of vaccinating children. Those arguing against these
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Thanks Steve Carrell and Jennifer Garner. Thanks for being a part of a film that broke all the rules. In your recent film together, Alexander and the Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day, you accomplished something that no other non-animated or religious film did in 2014. In fact, as far
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When you include a photograph in a design–say for a brochure or flier or billboard–you communicate something to your audience. Obviously photographs need to be relevant and purposeful (don’t just include random images). But beyond that, there are a few critical rules and guidelines for making photographs work well within
Read moreOne of the best ways to improve visual literacy and visual communication skills is to analyze a visual artifact of some kind. If you haven’t done one before, a visual analysis can seem kind of overwhelming. Doing one requires you to think about a visual artifact of some kind, whether
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Whether you’re writing a research report or you’re in argument with your girlfriend, if what you’re claiming doesn’t have much logic to it, you might just look silly, ignorant, or just plain out-of-the-loop. Avoid committing a logical fallacy and you’ll be in much better position to persuade the person you
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With as much trust as the average American puts into the news media, it probably goes without saying that the organizations that distribute the news have an ethical obligation to be as accurate and detail-oriented as possible. Unfortunately, the competition to get viewers often causes media outlets to skew news
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The two syllabi below have the exact same content, word for word. So is one better than the other? Without hesitation, I would respond: yes, most definitely. And I could bet that most people looking at these documents side-by-side would be close to unanimous in deciding which is better (or,
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Feeling confident about your understanding of punctuation? Brace yourself. The questions on this quiz will push even the self-reported grammar nerds to the outer extremities of their punctuation peripheries. This isn’t a quiz about grammar or spelling or writing theory. Just punctuation. But it ain’t easy. The good news? If you
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At the root of all good writing lies an understanding of how sentences are built. In kindergarten, we learn the fundamentals of grammar and the basic concepts of how sentences are constructed. For most of our elementary and secondary training in writing, we are taught simply to improve those grammatical
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