What the Heck Happened?

Has this ever happened to you? You submit the best copy you’ve ever written. On time, too. You feel really good about your work. Got a good vibe from the client…and then they never call you back. What the heck happened?

Read on and weep.

The Proof Is In the Proofing

Take the tale of the copywriter who didn’t want to proofread her own work. I know. Gasp of horror. She wrote waaaaaay to much copy, submitted it to the designer, and figured her job was done. Once the designer had the copy in full layout, he requested that the copywriter proof it to make sure that it all still made sense. She refused. “Put it through Copyedit,�? says she. Alrighty-then. We most definitely will. Only problem is, the designer that this copywriter pissed off was the ACD (Associate Creative Director). You know: the person who makes the hiring decisions. So this smarty-pants saved herself a few minutes of doing what’s actually her job to do, and sassed herself out of potentially thousands of dollars in income in the future. Bottom Line: Proof your work. Write. Revise. Fine tune. Submit. Revise. Re-Submit. PROOF. It’s your job. So do it. Then submit to Copyedit.

Type A, B, C…

This is the tale of the copywriter who thought he was a designer. Now don’t get me wrong. It’s actually good for a copywriter to have input into the layout. But that’s more useful once there’s a, you know, design. This creative soul submitted his copy deck complete with every single font style and size that Word contains: Algerian. Brittanic. Curlz. You get the idea. Very, very distracting. Not to mention extremely difficult to read. Did we hire him as a designer? Noooooooooo. We hired him as a writer. And the thing of it is, we briefed him in advance of our submission requirements. Font size 12. Times New Roman. No bells, whistles, or, heaven forbid, Curlz. Bottom Line: Follow instructions and keep it simple. Do the job you were hired to do, and let the designer do theirs.

I could go on, but you already get the point. It really is the not-so-little little things that count. There are many more tales where this came from, but I’m interested to hear yours. Do have any horror-stories to share? Let me know.

Lisa

© Lisa Downer 2006