Today I am going to post some hints on improving printed material such as your policy sheet and letters for parents. These are meant to be helpful hints for piano teachers, not professionals in the field of type and graphics, so the suggestions are general in nature.
When I was in high school I took a secretarial course for a year. Although I was planning on majoring in music, I very practically decided that music might not lead to immediate job opportunities and, if necessary, I could get a job as a secretary. Besides, I could already type and I knew I could get an A in the class.
I’ve always been grateful I took that class. Not only did I learn to type beautiful printed material, I was able to type my husband’s dissertation, compete with extensive mathematical footnotes on a non-electric typewriter.
However, some of the things I learned in that typing class are obsolete with the advent of word processing software.
- Do not double space after a period. This rule was for old-fashioned typewriters. Who uses one of those anymore? Computer word processing programs adjust space automatically after a period, so when you double space, you leave too much white space and it looks like you are as old as me and learned how to type on a typewriter. Who wants to age themselves?
- Do not use more than two fonts in your document, and if you do use two fonts, make sure they completely contrast in style. For example, don’t use two script fonts.
- Watch out for the center alignment option. This is best used for formal invitations. If you have to center align, make sure each line is drastically different in length. If the lines are of similar length, it looks like it is not aligned at all.
- Avoid the use of the Comic Sans font unless your document is specifically for children. I know, it is a cute font. But it is extremely overdone and has become so recognizable as a children’s font that it should be avoided. Do not use it for your professional material for adults and try to find another cute font for children.
- The default font in Word, Times Roman, is very over used. The same goes for Arial (Helvetica). There are other dignified fonts you can use instead. Check them out.
- Do not underline words in your documents. Nothing looks more amateurish than an email address that is underlined in a letter, policy sheet, or brochure! If your word processing program does it automatically, you should turn off that feature. Ask someone for help if you don’t know how.
- Don’t underline music book titles. Underlining was done back in typewriter days when we couldn’t italicize words. In fact, don’t underline anything; use italics instead.
- I have seen so many poor examples of brochures made by piano teachers. Start a collection of good brochures to see how yours measure up. Make friends with a graphic designer and let her look yours over. Please be very careful how you use Word Art. When Word Art first appeared in Word for Windows, I was totally enamored with it and used it all my brochures. When I saw that my 11 year old students were doing the same thing, I had second thoughts.
- Unless you are writing for children, don’t use 12-point type. It doesn’t look grown-up. If your document is crowded, try 9.5 or 9. If your document is too short, don’t use a larger font. Instead use more white space.
- Finally, with the advent of desktop publishing, parents and your future clients expect professional looking documents. Check out some books in the library that have examples of business letters. Notice especially how they are aligned and the importance of white space.
My next post will be some tips on using graphics such as clip art.
