Choosing the Right Words

The images are right there for you to choose from. When it comes time to design an ad you know exactly what it’s going to look like. Now it’s time to write the words for it, and suddenly you find yourself stuck. You stare at the computer screen and just can’t figure out what it is that you want to say.

Have you ever had a problem like this?

Any form of commercial printing, whether it’s brochures, flyers, or even postcards are going to be a combination of great images and words. You need both to be strong to develop an ad that attracts a person’s attention and gives them all the information they need.

Now, certain forms of advertising will emphasize images over words, such as flyers and postcards, but that doesn’t mean the words aren’t important, and when you get into the longer forms like brochures you need strong writing to get people interested.

How is the poor graphic designer supposed to cope with something like this?

Each person is going to have different methods for coming up with great text, just as any novelist will have different methods for coming up with a story. But there are some general ideas I can give to help ease the burden the next time you have a commercial printing project you need strong prose for.

First, ask yourself what the basic information you need to give is. This might be about a sale or it might be a description of a service. Write down exactly what it is that you’re going to be explaining to the customer. You don’t have to be fancy about it, just write the basic message down.

Once you know what to focus on you might take the time to look at other forms of advertising dealing with a similar topic. Look at what other people in your company have done before you or what your competition is up to. Pay attention to their phrasing and try to get a feel for what the best way is to convey your information.

If you already know what images you’re going to use, try to look at them from the perspective of what text would go best with them. What are your images saying to people, and how can you convert that into actual writing.

After having done all this try to sit down and just let whatever you can get pour out of you. This isn’t about perfect sentences or being concise with your writing. Just let your subconscious do most of the work and try to get as much as you can about your subject matter.

The hope is that once you’re done you’ll be in a prime position to go back over what you wrote and pick and choose what will work best for you. Writing it at all is the hardest part. Once you have the material in front of you the primary task becomes cutting out all the unnecessary writing.

This will be a very important step as well, because good ad content should be as concise and to the point as possible. People don’t often spend a lot of their time focusing on an ad, so you need to get your message across as soon as possible.

I’m aware that most of this sounds easier than it actually is, but after enough brainstorming sessions, and after enough time looking over what other people have done, you should start to develop a feel for what works and what doesn’t.

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