Mr. Write's Page

For most of my working life, I was the de facto office wordsmith. In matters of spelling, grammar, and the art of phrasing things to best advantage, I was the designated go-to guy.

I got overruled regularly by my corporate masters, but still, I was the acknowledged expert.

Things worked out that way because I enjoy writing and have a knack for it. Consider this blog, for example. I started it after I retired in 2006, and I’ve been posting merrily along ever since.

And I assure you, I’m not in it for the money. There is no money. I do it strictly for the enjoyment and the mental exercise.

Because I was an advertising copywriter for much of my writing career, I typically worked alongside a stable of graphics specialists who handled the design and typography side of things.

Graphic designers are fiercely proud folk who obsess over the minutiae of a project, in much the same way as do accountants and clockmakers. The designer’s realm is one of fonts, kerning, rastering, vectoring, Pantone color-matching, and other such mysteries.

As any one of them will tell you, no mere copywriter is capable of understanding what they do. Graphic design is a calling that requires specialized knowledge and training. That’s certainly true.

Then again, I may not know art, but I know what works.

Bad design is depressingly prevalent all around us. It haunts me wherever I go, just as it haunts my designer friends. Go online and take a look at a typical website. It’s probably an affront to clarity and order in a hundred ways.

Or consider the case of Fairfield Missionary Baptist Church, located on a lonely stretch of Georgia Route 82 south of my little town of Jefferson.

The sign in front of the church caught my attention soon after I moved here. I remember the day I first approached the place and saw the sign from a distance.

The thing is, the “F” in Fairfield is so elaborate and tricked-out — even enclosed in a box and separated from the other letters — that you almost don’t notice it.

The first time I saw the sign, I honestly thought it said Airfield Missionary Baptist Church.

And it isn’t just me. A couple of years ago, my ex and I were taking two of our granddaughters somewhere, and we drove past the church.

Maddie, the older granddaughter, was about six or seven at the time and a voracious reader — of books, road signs, anything.

As soon as the church came into view, I said, “Maddie! Quick! What’s the name of that church up ahead?”

She looked up at the sign in the distance and replied without hesitation, “Airfield!”

I may not know art, but I know what works. And doesn’t.