Writing for Design Professionals

Written for architects, engineers, and interior designers, the advice and samples work just as well for graphic designers, Web designers, and other professionals who aren't writers but need to write. Writing for Design Professionals shows visual communicators how to communicate effectively with words.

Chapter one introduces eight principles of good writing. The next several chapters focus on applying those principles to common writing scenarios such as brochures, newsletters, business letters, and press materials. Kliment gives both good and bad examples. He also explains why certain words or phrasing works or doesn't work and invites the reader to rewrite some of the examples. There are tips and pointers throughout.

Specific examples of designer-babble, business correspondence and ideas for newsletters are tailored to architects and design professions other than print graphic designers. However, it doesn't detract from the usefulness of the samples which can be easily adapted to graphic design and desktop publishing. My primary complaint is that there isn't enough contrast between the serif face used for the main text and the sans serif text used for the sample writing, even with the scotch rule separating the sections.

Rather than dwelling on spelling and grammar and the technical aspects of sentence structure, Kliment focuses on practical writing tasks. If you correspond with clients through letters or email, have a Web page to promote your business, write proposals, send out a newsletter, need to write a report for school, or create a resume then you need to be able to write. Writing for Design Professionals shows visual communicators how to communicate effectively with words.