illuminatedesigns

I recently received an email from a writing group that advised new writers to use the following to save expenses:

You can design your own business cards and stationery in Microsoft Word, and print them out on a color laser printer. If you want printed stationery, there are many online sources that provide a professional look for reasonable bucks.

optical communications
I’m sure they think this is good advice but in reality anyone believing that:

These low-cost, common-sense ideas allow you to come across as a savvy professional without wasted expense.

is in for a surprise. Not only are the tools the wrong ones to achieve a кухниsavvy professional appearance but the costs are going to be higher than they would have been if they’d used a good designer.

Let’s look at why.

Word. A great application for writing. No argument there. But for designing anything? No. Word’s layout tools are simplistic and lack real functionality for anything other than word-processing. This is because it is a word processor. A writing tool.

Color Laser Printer. Really nice. Expensive ($300-$700) but very nice. Consumables (toner cartridges) are costly ($75-$130 per color) as well.

Look, here’s the bottom line. Looking professional—savvy or not—requires more than just plopping some generic clip art into a word document with a name and contact information adjacent. Generic looks generic and if you do not know how to do layout and even less about typography all you have is a 2.5 x 3 piece of stock that screams boring and unprofessional. You don’t have to like that statement and quite honestly, you shouldn’t.

There seems to be a penchant for non-design creatives to promote the misconception that it’s easy to look professional without the skills or the tools that make that happen. It’s not.  It’s no more true than telling a designer who has never written so much as a blog post that all they need is a notepad to appear professional. Just as there are designers who don’t know how to write (especially true when it comes to copywriting) there are writers who don’t know the first thing about what is going to look professional in design. And even the simple, most basic business card, should be a professional reflection of your business or purpose. In fact, it is not outlandish to say that the simple business card should be the most professional looking piece of marketing you need. Despite it’s small size and liberal delivery to anyone holding their hand out, it may well be the first and onlypiece of marketing you get to deliver to a prospective client.

Writing is much more involved than merely typing. Writing is a beautiful and highly creative art that requires a great deal of skill in crafting words that convey images for the reader. The writer’s canvas is a blank sheet, be that in a notebook, napkin at a bar, or a page in Word and the tools of the craft are words. The writer’s skill is knowing how to write effectively. Knowing how to put the words together, grammatically and contextually to convey the message they are trying to deliver. So it is with design.

Designers use images to communicate ideas in the viewer’s mind or to reinforce the content being delivered. Design skills, such as layout, typography, color, and how art conveys content, are learned often over many years. And the tools are specific, and costly. For real design work you need, at the very least, the right tools—a layout program, such as InDesign or Quark, and a graphics program, such as Photoshop, Paint Shop Pro, or even GIMP. For logos a vector program such as Illustrator is invaluable.

I’m not saying you should go out and buy programs such as these. In fact, it would be foolish for a writer who does not also do design to do that. What I am saying is that if you are the writer who is not a designer you need to find a designer to work with you in the development of your business card/stationery at reasonable prices. There are numerous designers who do excellent logo work for $50-$100. Printing services, such as Vistaprint, will print 500 cards for less than $50 and often run good specials. The result is going to be much more professional than anything you create in Word using its clip art library and the cost will be less than feeding toner into that pricey color laser recommended.

If you are on a shoestring budget you need to use what money you do have most effectively. Rather than spend money on a color laser printer you really don’t need, and waste your valuable time creating unprofessional looking cards/stationery, spend your money on getting the design look that will make you look  professional and spend your valuable time using Word to do the work you already know how to do: writing.