I’m going to ask you to humor me for a moment. If I say the word “writer,” what picture pops into your head? My bet is that your imagination immediately conjured up an image of a bespectacled man or woman sitting in the lone corner of a coffee shop with a Moleskine and a pen. Of course, your imagined writer is not conversing with the other customers or being engaged with the world because the best writing comes from the inner-depths of a writer’s mind and soul … right? Well, yes and no.

Poetry and fiction may be more personal works, thus requiring seclusion from the distraction of others. But agency copywriting is a different ball game altogether.

Marketing writing is a form of communication that is constantly evolving, and to be successful copywriters need to be actively involved with others. I have learned a few things from my experience in writing copy for Hile: Read the rest of this entry »

“Is that Greek?”

Imagine you’re a client eagerly about to review Hile’s proposed design for a new website. You click on the link we’ve given you and there on your screen you see a mocked-up web page featuring clean, stylish design, a just-right photo for your banner image and … wait a minute. What the heck? In place of where the copy should go you see this:

Where you thought you’d see words somehow related to your company’s industry or purpose, there in its place is what appears to be a long, lost Romance language. You rack your brain trying to decipher what is now taking the place of the expected text. Of course, the words (if you can call them that) are there to show you how the page will look with copy and, unfortunately, hold as much meaning as a baby’s babble.

What Lorem Ipsum basically comes down to is designing and organizing a website, brochure, etc. that visually looks like the finished product. It doesn’t distract the viewer with actual copy, and the letters are spaced out well enough so that it appears on the page just as intelligible English would.  Read the rest of this entry »

Twenty years ago after my doctor recommended I get more exercise, I, like 40 million other Americans, went out and bought a treadmill. I knew that the odds of exercising long-term in our unfinished basement were against me (only 3 in 10 Americans exercise regularly) but I was going to beat the odds. I swore that I wouldn’t become a statistic by letting my treadmill turn into a back-of-the-basement, spider web covered, clothes hanger.

My 3-day a week treadmill regimen lasted 2 years.

Yup! I was a statistic. (Lest you think I’m a total slackard, I was exercising sporadically, but not on our expensive treadmill.)

Two and a half years ago when I decided to launch our company blog I had the same noble intentions as my early exercise aspirations. I promised myself I’d write two fresh posts a week, including compelling interviews with industry leaders, and that my entries would be GOOD. By my fifteenth post I realized that all those great ideas I’d had when I decided to become Mr. Social Media had run out. Read the rest of this entry »

This summer I said farewell to my friends at Hile Design and hopped on a plane to spend a 5-week stint in England, where I studied literature at Oxford University and learned the correct way to drink tea and play croquet. I did fairly well academically, but how does an A in English translate to quality work in the office?

I’d like to think that the expenses of this trip paid for more than college credit and that what I learned while across the pond may be applied to the work I’m doing here at Hile.

So, besides finally being able to define a “crumpet,” what have I learned? My literature courses revolved around legendary writers such as Jane Austen, J.R.R. Tolkien, C.S. Lewis and Lewis Carroll. But, at Hile I’m not writing about ill-fated courtships or magical rings. Now that I’m out of the classroom and back in the office I feel like I’ve taken a tumble through a rabbit hole to land on my head in the world of advertising.

However, my job here can really be boiled down to one thing: words. Constructing, organizing, manipulating, sometimes even creating words is really what my job as an assistant copywriter comes down to. And what were Tolkien and Austen really doing but stringing together words to fashion a plot and characters? Read the rest of this entry »

I’ve been interning at Hile Design for about four months now and I’d like to think I’ve lasted due to my writing skills and charming personality. However, as daughter of Julie Tibus (Creative Director at Hile) I can’t help but wonder if my being able to say “hi mom” when I walk through the door has anything to do with my current position.

I assist Monica Getz in researching, editing and, in those occasional, blissful moments, writing copy. I move in a nomadic fashion around the office as I hop from desk to desk depending on who happens to be absent the day I’m working. I’m usually stationed at Mary Cooper’s desk, but currently I’m sitting at a table in my mom’s office. Note to Dave: these chairs look very modern and stylish but they do nothing for the posture.

Now, I’m certainly not pampered at Hile because of my last name. Most of these people have known me since I was in middle school and have, through phone calls to my mother and the annual holiday parties, witnessed my maturation. Apparently they liked how I turned out since I am now employed, but just how much of an influence did mommy dearest have in this decision?

If I weren’t her kid, Julie Tibus would surely intimidate me. She knows what she’s doing, how to get it done and has the confidence to help lead this company wherever it needs to go.  Lucky for me, when she’s giving me an assignment in what I like to refer to as her “business mode,” I can think back to all the days I’ve seen her in a raggedy t-shirt vacuuming the living room and belting out a Michael Jackson song.

I wouldn’t recommend it for everyone, but working for my mother isn’t half bad.  And, if anyone says I’m only here because I’m a Tibus I will stamp my feet and call for mommy. She will fly over in her blazer and heels, lift that ferocious one eyebrow, and the perpetrator will be put in his place.  Or, I suppose I could just keep proving myself worthy of my position and see where that gets me.

Hile Design copywriting intern John Farris reflects on his experience:

My time has come. We all knew it was going to happen, but we tried to forget. And upon the final hour I eat bagel after bagel at my desk and contemplate how to sign off wittily before they come and take me away.

Well I guess I’ll actually be walking out, hopefully without an escort (sorry about the stapler, Dave), and hopefully with my dignity intact. I am sad to see my end here—it’s really a fun place to be. And I wasn’t kidding about the bagels; I’m eating them right now, a bit of a going-away treat.

It’s hard to get too upset about leaving when I think of how much better off I am since starting in February. I now have something more to say than “I watch TV” to a potential employer when he asks me about my experience with advertising. A while back I looked at my resume and thought about what skills I could add to it since working at Hile, and I was quite pleased. I owe it all to the people at Hile for taking a chance on me and seeing what I can do. Unfortunately, nothing I did was that impressive (otherwise I wouldn’t be writing this), and I’m going to work minimum wage for the rest of my life. Just kidding—I’m excited to see what opportunities await me after the experience of working here.

I could go on and list the technical skills I’ve acquired, but that would be awfully boring. I’ll just keep it brief and simple and give the best advice I can think of for anyone in my position: Don’t be shy about approaching a company and relentlessly pursuing them until they submit to your requests. Well, not exactly, but bring some confidence to the table (especially when you don’t have much else to prove yourself with) and let them know how much you want to work with them. What have you got to lose anyway?

Editor’s note: John’s right. While we didn’t exactly “submit to [his] requests,” John’s polite perseverance—via emails, not phone calls—kept reminding us of his availability so that when we did need someone to help with a pro bono project, he was the one we thought of. Thanks, John, for all your hard work and witty writing—and when you’re famous, don’t forget your first advertising job!

With nearly EVERYTHING being transformed to a digital or online medium, there’s a lot of discussion about whether the physical novel will be phased out along with other art forms. We already see newspapers and magazines converting, and music did a long time ago. I don’t think it’s absurd to believe novels are next, but I’m going to hold on to the hope that they remain sacred enough to keep around as physical objects.

But honestly, what is the argument for books being preserved over music or newspapers? They cost more, they are just as difficult to steal (kidding. I mean I’m sure they are, but..), carrying many of them at once is difficult, the actual content is not compromised when transferred to digital—sounds like it might be a lost cause.

Think about the tangible qualities of a novel: You can write notes in the margins, underline parts, dog-ear pages, use memorabilia as bookmarks. And what about the wear and tear a favorite book displays as a badge of honor after years of reading and rereading? Or there’s the pungent scent of the breeze created from flipping pages—differing with a book’s age and the materials it was made from, conveying an unknown history of where the words may have been.

Do these compare to characteristics of other endangered artifacts of artistic expression? I think vinyl’s come close to possessing the novel’s venerable status, but then again I also still covet a large collection of those. I’m 22 and I’ve had many options for playing music throughout my life, but I don’t think CDs and cassette tapes have the palpable aesthetic qualities of an old (or new) record. Something about the process—removing a large fragile vinyl disc from a sleeve, with music delicately etched into its surface, all encased in a cardboard canvas of sorts. Then, having to carefully place a needle on it to receive the auditory pleasure and remain present and attentive to flip it—the ritual aspect of listening to a record is inherently more special than the action of opening a plastic case and shoving more plastic into still more plastic. And listening to vinyl is certainly more satisfying than pressing a button on a hunk of metal smaller than your hand, not to mention the differences in sonic quality, the warm analog hiss versus the compressed mp3s streaming from an iPod.

Anyway, back to books. There’s also the fact that novels have endured for so long. The earliest work that’s been called the first novel is from 1470, while the earliest known modern sound recording is from 1859. And the novel has arguably gone through more technological stages than music when considering all the different printing, paper type, and distribution advancements. Perhaps it’s here to stay?

All that said, I’m more than willing to imagine the exciting possibilities of fully digitized storytelling. I’m not too well read on the subject (har har), but I see a lot of design options coming into play with e-books. Each page could have a unique background or margin design. Different fonts could be used throughout, or for different speakers. Colors could be abundant and illustrative, pictures could become more commonplace, or there could even be interactive elements. Maybe you could combine the words and pictures and sounds and have the words spoken out loud or with the pictures moving or … oh wait, that’s called a movie.

Not to be too cynical—I do think there are some serious opportunities for innovative design work within digital books. I also think that what makes it so plausible (and perhaps why none of these design ideas are commonly implemented in printed versions) is the money saved when you get rid of all printing costs.

But I ask you, Future, please leave the printed novel be, like you’ve done with … I don’t know… walking? Or not.

It’s baseball season, and for Detroit Tigers fans, we hope, the Year of the Tiger (yes, after a seven-game losing streak, there is still hope). In honor of the Great American Pastime, I want to talk about some of the words and phrases in (American) English that have come to us courtesy of baseball:

• Out in / out of left field – Out in left field is used to refer to someone whose ideas or actions are, according to Answers.com, “a little crazy.” There are various theories for the origin of this phrase, two of which have to do with the New York Yankees, so I will not discuss them here. (The Yankees get enough attention, most of it undeserved.) One of the other theories is interesting: Before the Chicago Cubs moved to Wrigley Field, they played at Chicago’s second West Side Park, which was later bought by the University of Illinois College of Medicine. Eventually, U of I built its Neuropsychiatric unit on what had been West Park’s left field. You can connect the dots from there. A related phrase means something unexpected happening, as in, “Wow, that came out of left field.” When a runner is traveling from third base trying to score, he may be thrown out at home plate by a ball delivered by the left fielder, whom the runner has his back to and therefore can’t see.
• Drop the ball – OK, so this expression could refer to multiple sports—basketball, football, even dodgeball. Now I’m curious about whether the phrase truly did originate in baseball. Excuse me just a moment while I check … I’m back. There’s no real agreement on the origin of the phrase, probably because it’s so generic. In any case, if you do drop the ball while you’re attempting to catch a fly one, throw a baserunner out, or catch a wild pitch, chances are good it’ll come back to haunt you later. Big-time.
• Three strikes and you’re out – This one is pretty self-explanatory, but let’s give it a positive spin, shall we? If you watch any great match-up between a pitcher and a hitter, you’ll see that the hitter actually gets an unlimited number of chances to hit the ball (not only three), as long as he can “stay alive” by getting a piece of it, or hitting the ball foul. Foul balls only count as strikes up to the second one—strike three must be a swinging strike. So, you’ll hear sports announcers say a hitter has a “great at-bat” if he can extend the number of pitches the pitcher throws him to eight, ten or even a dozen. There’s a life lesson here, so excuse me if I sound like a self-help expert for a moment: In real life, as in baseball, you get more than three chances. Just keep trying to get a piece of the ball. And don’t swing at the really bad pitches.
• Threw me a curveball – We’ve all had the  experience of someone hitting us with an unpleasant surprise, whether it takes the shape of a last-minute meeting at work, a late-night phone call or a breakup announcement delivered by that most sensitive of social media, Facebook. Yup, someone just threw us a curveball, and our first response is often to throw the darn thing back, only harder. The trajectory of the curveball is north-to-south (like a rainbow’s arc), so it has the effect of dropping suddenly as it crosses home plate, leaving hitters swinging at the place they thought the ball was going to be. Here’s the thing to remember about curveballs: pitchers don’t throw them to hit batters, but to unbalance them. Maybe that’s true of life’s curveballs, too, even though they do sometimes hurt. (See a video about Tigers pitcher Justin Verlander’s curveball.)
• Hit a home run or Hit it out of the park – People use this as a compliment: “Wow, Joe, you really hit it out of the park with that idea.” If you’re a frequent home run hitter, chances are you’ll be welcome on any team. All home runs aren’t alike in importance, though all are exciting. The more runners there are on base, the more meaningful a home run is; a grand slam garners the hitter’s team four runs. So, while “hitting it out of the park” (that is, hitting the ball over the stands) is a display of a hitter’s power, it’s more significant to hit a home run with runners on base. Another thing about home runs: the more of them a hitter produces, the more strikeouts he is likely to have—case in point, Babe Ruth. He had 714 career home runs and nearly twice as many strikeouts at 1330. The moral of the story has been repeated multiple times, but I’ll restate it here: You have to take a lot of big swings in order to hit home runs. Sometimes you’ll miss, but sometimes you’ll hit it out of the park.
• For you Tigers fans, here’s your very own list of baseball names and words that, taken as a group, are probably only meaningful to you: Mags, Miggy, Cabby, Gibby, Sparky, Ernie, Pudge, JV, DD, Game 163, Jim Joyce, Paws, 1968, Rod & Mario, Jim & Dan, and finally, “near-perfect game.”

I could write about the marketing aspect of baseball, but that gets into unknown (foul?) territory. I just love the game itself, and don’t want to bother myself with all the moneymaking and shaking going on. Now I’m off to see if the Tigers can break their losing streak and head toward first place again!