I once read that Gay Talese used a pair of binoculars to look at his manuscript. He’d hang it on his wall about 40 feet away and sit back an use the lens to gain a different perspective. Sitting on the printer is a 45-page document that has been edited, marked up, cut, rearranged, and reassembled during the past three months. The Word document a black and white mess of text and bold headers. I’m thinking about dusting off my opera glasses.
At some point, once I go through the document again looking for typos and hoping I’ll find some logic to the arrangement of topics, I’ll send it off to the graphic designer. He’ll provide his own stamp on the document by coaxing it out of its Word shell and bringing it to life on the page. This other life form will be beautiful.
But then I’ll see the flaws; the typos, the illogical references, the faulty structure, the termite wilted prose. These flaws always existed. They concealed themselves in the camouflage of the Cambria font.
It’s the new perspective that makes it fresh and provides the opportunity to wound and recover.
It may not be the most efficient method, but it the project becomes much stronger especially when there is strong communication with the designer.
Simple Questions 