You could always spot where a copywriter trained.
People who’d been to university always wrote their copy with a pencil.
People who’d been to art School always used a typewriter.
Why is this?
I think it’s because university writers ‘hear’ copy.
While art school writers ‘see’ copy.
So a university writer is listening when they write.
To the flow of the words, the rhythm of the argument.
An art school writer is looking at what it looks like on the page.
Have I got the line breaks in the right place?
Are there any widows?
Where should the indents go?
A university writer isn’t interested in any of that.
What it looks like is the art director’s problem.
And yet the biggest influence on advertising writing wasn’t a copywriter.
It was an art director.
Helmut Krone. .
He did it on the very first Volkswagen ads.
Until then, all art directors used to see the ads as 3 elements:
Visual. Headline. Copy.
That’s why the copy was just put in as ‘Greek’ (Lorem ipsum) on the layout.
It wasn’t important.
For most art directors this copy was just several grey blocks at the bottom of the ad.
For reasons of design, art directors got rid of ‘widows’ and ‘indents’.
(Sentences which began or ended in the middle of a line, so leaving white space.)
They thought it was graphically cleaner, and more attractive.
But Helmut Krone didn’t think anyone would want to read an impenetrable block.
So he began cutting spaces into the copy, to open it up.
The very spaces the other art directors were trying to get rid of.
Then he said to the writer Julian Koenig, “Can you write copy to fit this?”
Koenig said, “I can, but some of the sentences will be just one word long.”
Krone said, “That’s okay.”
He wasn’t interested in grammatical correctness.
He was interested in opening it up so it looked inviting to read.
And so a whole new style of non-grammatical advertising writing was born.
Faster, snappier, punchier.
And it works because it’s the way people talk.
And it’s certainly a lot more inviting to read.
I once read an interview with Elmore Leonard.
He is probably the biggest-selling crime-writer ever.
He was asked in an interview, what made him such a successful writer.
Did he have any tips?
He said, “Lot’s of white space on the page.”
RSS Feed
Twitter
Email
I have notice that this blog is quite unique in its layout. Dave you too write in sentences.
You are not afraid of the return button on your keyboard either.
dave, as i always say, ‘less is absolutely, positively, without a doubt, decidedly and appropriately more’.
So long
as people don’t
into a habit
of polishing
turds
Sid. I guess it shows.
I was trained at art school and I always liked short sentences and lots of gaps in the copy.
My guess is Elmore actually said, “Lots of white space on the page”, but why split hairs? (Because I love splitting hairs. Especially over apostrophes.)
Mike Reed.
You’re absolutely right, that was a stupid place to put an apostrophe.
It’s neither an abbreviation nor possessive.
I don’t think you’re splitting hairs at all.
Thanks for pointing it out.
Although I went to art-school and admittedly started writing on a typewriter it wasn’t for aesthetic reasons… I was ‘persuaded’ to use a typewriter for scripts and copy by my first boss. *Cough*YouDave*Cough*.
The thing is, I was rubbish on a typewriter. I was so slow I could never have done a topical ad’.
And because I was so slow I didn’t want to type much.
This lead to me being very economical with the amount of words I would type.
And what’s one of the rules of copywriting? Keep it as short and as succinct as possible.
I think my inability to use a typewriter back then possibly helped make me a better writer.
Possibly.
Hi Gary.
It’s a good point.
University writers get carried away writing tons of copy.
Art School writers don’t like it so they write less of it.
And 9 times out of 10 that’s the right thing to do.
Glad it worked out for you Gary.
Thanks for telling me.
Hi Dave. I’m feeling a little bit left out of this one. I didn’t go to university or art school – I started work at 17. I think the key influences on my writing style have been the way my mates talk down the pub and the novels I’ve loved.
Mind you, when I started out, there seemed to be a huge gulf between that pub banter and those novels. Until I discovered writers like Hemmingway, Hubert Selby Jr, Roddy Doyle, James Elroy and realised that writing doesn’t have to be removed from life – it should be rooted in real life.
From there, people like Martin Amis and Don DeLillo taught me that writing doesn’t have to be spare to be ‘real’. You can do what you want with its form as long as you maintain an honesty of tone. I think that’s why I love Neil French’s work as much as Tim Riley’s. They’re opposite ends of the style spectrum, but they both convey intelligence and wit in their own way.
Stephen King art directs his books - writing them into DTP software so they are created in WYSIWYG - ie as they will ultimately appear.
Hence he makes sure that the most suspenseful moments happen at the bottom of a right-hand page, for instance……..