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March 2008

The Grammar Cheat Sheet

When you know the correct way to structure a sentence, the world becomes a scary place — you start to notice how many people get it painfully wrong. The ease of content creation that the web now affords us is making the problem worse, so why not get a basic understanding to help make your text a little more professional?

Before we get into this, let’s establish two things.

  1. A lot of these ‘rules’ are different country to country, decade to decade.
    The way a proof reader or typesetter might lay out a page in Britain is different to how it might be done in America. How it’s done in 1985 is different than how it might be done in 2005. The styles of typesetting can change over time and throughout different regions.
  2. Always be consistent, even if it might not be ‘correct’.
    Some companies will have certain ways they layout text, even if it might be considered wrong for their geographic location. But they are consistent with how they lay their text out and that is the most important thing. You don’t want your audience to get half way through a piece of text and get confused because you changed the way you laid something out.

Double Spaces

Never use them. Ever. Your high-school teacher was wrong, don’t ever use them.

Apostrophes

An apostrophe is inserted when letters are removed.
Let’s go to the race. (Let us go to the race.)
It’s going to be a great day. (It is going to be a great day.)

The other use of the apostrophe is to show ownership.
The runner’s shoes.
Mayor Swanks’ opening speech.

Tip: If the last letter of the owners name ends in s, place the apostrophe on the end without adding the extra s.

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For the Love of a Notebook

An illustrated school of ghosts, engraved skin and utopias for the dystopians—the Moleskine has developed quite the following.

Not too long ago I wrote about the Moleskine Notebooks in a general way – going into what they are, where they came from and expressed my overly romantic feelings for the little books—the word lust was used. While writing, I began to realise that the article was starting to get long, far too long for one article from an online source, so I decided to split it into two. This first article was an introduction to the notebooks. This second article is a look at how they can be used and what fantastic things are being done with them.

The Moleskine range has been used for some great things. From being used as the canvas of illustrators sharpening their skills whenever they get a chance, no matter where they are, to people ditching their PDAs for an analogue system with a pocket Moleskine at its centre, to creatives filling a book with whatever came into their minds for exhibitions.

05-wil3.jpg

Ghost School is a blog I started following a couple of months ago; it is the online journal of the work of illustrator Wil Freeborn, detailing the sketches he does in his Moleskine when he’s out and about. It is a good example of how versatile the notebook is for illustrating (and writing) on the go, as the scenes he illustrates are ones he encounters on a daily basis when out and about. His use of delicate colours works well with the yellow stock, with illustrations that are soft, gentle and look at home in a Moleskine. So why is this his book of choice? He was kind enough to answer a few questions.

Alex Charchar: Is there any particular reason you chose to use a Moleskine for your illustrations?

Wil Freeborn: Yes, they sit really flat. I like using both pages at once. I rarely draw on one page at a time. I’ve tried other books but they tend to favour the right side, so you end up drawing in portrait. The paper is also slightly smoother which makes the experience of drawing that much better.

On a more personal angle I started drawing again as I wanted to think visually to hopefully improve my design. The only way I knew I could get better at drawing was trying to draw as much as possible and I try to do small things to incorporate drawing into a routine, such as in the train, my work environment. I’m trying almost to explain to myself what my world looks like in a very matter of fact manner. I think for a time I was starting to forget.

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Typography 8: 1987

Oh man! Has he done it now! Neither rain, nor snow, nor death of the night, can keep him from his duty. Hogwash! Welcome to the horribly late review of the Type Directors Clubs’ Typography 8, 1987.

Obviously any talk of how relevant and cutting edge this modern design is can be thrown out the window because of my delivery custodian, so don’t get on my case about it—actually, please do. It’ll be 20 years before my mailman gets your letters to me anyway, so do your worst, world! Do. Your. Worst.

***

Alright, now that I’ve had my iced-tea and a light snack, I feel a little better. A little calmer. So it was a little late, what’s the big deal? Not as if it was a kidney, and I can still do a nice little write up on this gem, can’t I?

When flipping through the pages of any publication from this time, especially an annual, I get an odd feeling of nostalgia. The work that fills the pages reminds of me of the television shows I watched as a kid. When you compare the work found in this book to, say, Typography 27, it’s easy to see whats changed, what’s the same and what was obviously done in a fit of the-kids-will-love-it.The most comforting thing I found was, what was well crafted design then has held up amazingly well now. Which gives one the hope that if you put the right amount of effort, thought and enough of your soul into a piece of work you do now, you and others will still look at it and smile in two-decades time.

Oohhh the colour!

Let us start with the colour. Oohhh the colour! Such calming colour! Looking at some of the work in this book, you’ll be easily forgiven for thinking there was a colour prohibition recently lifted on pastels. Soft blues, soft pinks, soft yellows and soft purples all come out to play, and what a night they have! They drunkenly dance upon the skin of type and shapes across the dance floor that is the page, in an uncommon display of divergence among brothers of letters and shapes. A single world may contain three to four colours, one per letter. Or a sentence may have each of its words a different colour, which I’m sure was all in an attempt (marketing? finance? client?) to make the job really pop.

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My Lovely Moleskine (Nice Notebook)

Blessed be the notebooks of Modo & Modo, draped in cloth of oil, born in Tours of France. Standing tall of 14 by wide of 9, split through mark of cloth and strapped by rubber and cotton with corners curved. Thy name is Moleskine.

I can’t lie, I love these books. I adore these books. These books do things to me that no book should do, especially a book whose pages are empty. The allure of these little books is quite enigmatic, there are countless alternatives, most of which are significantly cheaper. Yet the quality of these beautiful books have won the love of many, the world over.

Note: I’m going to be writing in general about the Moleskine range, however, for the most part will be talking of the Basic Ruled (Pocket) version in mind.

If you’ve ever purchased one of the notebooks in the Moleskine range, you’ll most likely be familiar with the history behind them. In the little pocket in the back of most editions, there comes a small folded booklet explaining their history and origin. “…used by European artists and thinkers for the past two centuries, from Van Gogh to Picasso, from Ernest Hemingway to Bruce Chatwin” boasts the marketers at Modo & Modo. It is Chatwins name which holds the most significance, as he is the one whose notebooks are the basis for the current line of Moleskines.

He ordered a hundred books to ensure a healthy supply

He loved the books so, that when the manufacturer of the books he was purchasing closed up shop, he ordered a hundred books to ensure a healthy supply. The death of the owner of the business whom manufactured these books died in 1986 and his family decided to close down the business. Just over a decade later, Modo & Modo trademarked the brand Moleskine and started to produce a notebook, which is basically identical to that owned by Chatwin, as described in his novel The Songlines;

“I pulled from my pocket a black, oil cloth-covered notebook,
Its pages held in place with an elastic band …
… I wrote my name and address on the front page,
offering a reward to the finder”

It is mostly due to marketing that the names of Van Gogh, Picaso and Hemingway appear in the history of the Moleskine. Van Goghs’ notebooks probably come the closest to the current design. His books had a cloth ribbon to keep it shut, as well as what appears to be a small pocket at the back of the book—it’s hard to tell if the cover is as study or of a similiar material as the current line of Moleskine notebooks, but it comes pretty close. Picassos’ book is also more or less the same, but it is Hemingways association that seems to be the loosest. His mention of a notebook small enough to fit into his coats’ inside pocket is all that was needed for it to be proclamined a moleskineeque design. But really, they are all just pocket notebooks with a dark, durable cover.

You notice it because it is unnoticable

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