Hyperquake Blog

I like words. I like punctuation.

I like reading books like Strunk and White’s Elements of Style and pretending like I’m going to remember anything I read there.

I like debating the semantics of whether words like “impactful” are or should be real words.

Confession: I worry about the proliferation of blogs watering down the art of writing. Much like everyone suddenly having access to a zillion fonts when desktop publishing arrived lead to some pretty heinously-styled documents (I’m guilty of more than a few), so too being “published” instantly online whenever you want tends to cause people to lean more into “can” than “should,” and while I admire the democracy of a medium equally available to everyone to express themselves, I often find myself chiding that there is a right way to do it. There is a right way to break the rules. There’s also a right way to spell “you’re”.

The instantness of the Internet is the guilty temptress here: you just type it all out and hit “Publish” and that’s it, onward to the next e-task. The world goes so fast now that it does often seem a waste to stop and reread to make sure you’re really saying what you wanted to say.

Though not a trained writer in any sense of the word (there are definitely some wonky commas in this post), I think it’s important for designers to be able to properly write. There is a huge divide between understanding what you’re doing in your own head, and being able to write about it in such a way that makes your viewers or clients understand in the same way.

So I say, have a voice, a distinct writing style. Say your piece as concisely as possible (Strunk and White reference!). Have fun with it, but most importantly, take your time.

*Publish*

Tags: internet, writing