Love those fearless vigilantes? Vote for your top 5 on our list of 20 great vigilante films. Do you feel lucky? You could win DVDs of all 5 movies! Every Get Great Creative subscriber who votes is automatically entered to win. We'll post the vote results and the name of the random drawing winner on our Facebook page this Friday, Jan. 20.

 

The Shadow knows!  

 

If you want 3D on your TV, you have to pay more and wear ugly glasses. But you can get a subtle 3D effect in display type that's free, and even better, visible to the naked eye. Just add drop shadows.  

 

Here's some text with drop shadows used well. Like the famous 1930s vigilante, The Shadow goes to work in mysterious ways that you don't really notice. The text just looks more interesting:

 

Like all good things (rich food, hard liquor, pulp fiction), drop shadows should be used in moderation. Evil lurks in excess:

• DO keep your drop shadows subtle. Imagine the letters being lit with a soft light rather than the mid-day sun.
• DON'T use drop shadows on small text, such as body text and captions, or on large blocks of text, such as paragraphs.

If you've never heard the iconic opening to radio episodes of The Shadow - or you'd love to hear that ominous laugh once more - spend the next 38 seconds in shadowland.

 

Email us about a great or awful design. View more tips on our Creativity Blog. 

When is a postcard not a postcard?

Q: I want to promote our new offer by sending out a postcard, but I'm not sure about the rules. How big or fancy can it be without it costing extra? 

 

A: Sending a postcard by First-Class Mail is less expensive than sending a letter, but only if it fits the Post Office definition of a standard postcard. You might loosely define postcard as a single sheet of card stock printed on both sides. The Post Office is much more specific.

To qualify for standard postcard pricing, your piece must be rectangular and fall within this range: 

• Minimum size of 5 x 3.5 inches, with a thickness of 0.007 inch.
• Maximum size is 6 x 4.25 inches, with a thickness of 0.016 inch

If your postcard is larger, it is not a postcard for pricing purposes. It will be charged as a letter or large envelope, depending on its size. To calculate your postage, visit http://postcalc.usps.gov/.

 

Email us your question about design.  View more tips on our Creativity Blog.

  

ToonUps, a digital entertainment company, will never be as well known as its popular Facebook game, "A Better World." But that's just fine with the company's owners. When they asked Hollister Creative to redesign the ToonUps website, their goal wasn't more visibility, it was more credibility.  

 

The business world is interested in a Facebook game like "A Better World" because it has an audience (50,000 monthly active users) and an idea with unlimited potential ("Do Good, Look Good, Feel Good" in a virtual world "Where all good deeds get rewarded"). With ToonUps attracting attention that could lead to important business deals down the road, the owners wanted a more businesslike website.

AFTER: The new home page design

BEFORE: The old home page design

 

Much of that was accomplished through a new sitemap that added pages for Management Team, Investor Information and Partner Opportunities, as well as a Newsroom in which to showcase the game's extensive media coverage.

 

It also made sense from a business perspective to focus the new ToonUps home page on the company's top product, "A Better World." The challenge was to sell the merits of a cheerful, colorful, cartoonish game while adding enough sophistication to convey that this is a business website for grownups.

 

When designing a game company website, keep these tips in mind:

1. Pull out all the stops to sell the top game on the home page. Think through the best artwork and animation sequence to introduce the game. If that doesn't exist in a clip you can grab, create it. It's worth the extra effort.
2. Visually distinguish the company from the games. Neutral colors like white and gray in the header, navigation bar, background and text areas provide a businesslike environment that contrasts nicely with the colorful products.
3. Invite visitors inside with prominent navigation. This site's goal goes beyond name recognition and product awareness; success requires enticing the business audience to learn more and connect with ToonUps.

 
  

  
Writing doesn't have to start with a capital W

Q: My new boss says my reports are wordy and confusing. Expressing that which I need to express when I'm speaking is no problem, but as I prepare myself to type I get anxious that I won't appear intelligent or formal enough, so I often use larger words and seem to over-explain. What can I do to improve?

 

A:The bad news is, the boss is right. The good news is, your malady is common and curable. Lots of people who speak perfectly well freak out when they start writing by thinking of it as Writing, with a capital W, to signify Weighty and Worrisome. They whip out the thesaurus in a quest for polysyllabic glory. They cram multiple thoughts into single sentences. They overreach for eloquence and achieve verbosity instead.

 

There's nothing wrong with big words or complex sentence structure, if (it's a big if) they don't reduce clarity. But most often they do. To avoid this trap:

1. Pretend you are writing (lower case w) to a good friend who needs this information. You aren't showing off, you're just being helpful.
2. Keep each sentence short by expressing only one thought (okay, two if you must).
3. Ask a friend to read what you've written and flag any parts she had to read twice to understand. Rewrite those parts using simpler words and sentences.

Email us your question about writing or editing. View more tips on our Creativity Blog.