Wordplay techniques to steal from 'Kinky Boots' "Ladies and gentlemen … and those who have yet to make up your minds." — Billy Porter as Lola in Harvey Fierstein's 'Kinky Boots' Here's a quick humor technique: Twist a list. That is: 1) Start with a series of two or more items that go together. ("Ladies and gentlemen …") 2) Then add a funny final item that's not like … [Read more...] about This list is made for twisting
Archives for August 2013
So to speak
Colloquialisms make great headlines When copyeditors at The Oregonian needed a headline for a piece on car seat safety, they wrote: NO, YOU'RE NOT THERE YET New pediatric guidelines call for the little ones to stay in their safety seats a lot longer Searching for a good headline? Use a quote, colloquialism or sound bite. That's what these winners of the American Copy … [Read more...] about So to speak
Tattoos, water balloons and green bananas
Spread the word like Sagmeister & Walsh For a show at the contemporary art gallery Deitch Projects in 2008, designer Stefan Sagmeister stacked 10,000 bananas against a wall. Unripe green bananas among the yellow ones spelled out the sentence, “Self-confidence produces fine results.” For an iconic 1999 poster for the American Institute of Graphic Arts (AIGA), … [Read more...] about Tattoos, water balloons and green bananas
The (One-Page) Magazine
The New York Times goes brief Talk about brief: The New York Times packs 13 stories onto its briefs page, called The (One-Page) Magazine. Notice the combination of: One-paragraph profiles, trend pieces and new nuggets One-sentence reviews Charts (History, in Kardashians) Glossary items (This should be a word: Denigreet) Timelines (This one's running across … [Read more...] about The (One-Page) Magazine
‘We pulled a profit of $7,000’
IABC, PRSA chapters host sell-out event, reach chapter 'virgins' The Minnesota chapters of the International Association of Business Communicators (IABC) and the Public Relations Society of America (PRSA) had a problem. Chapter leaders wanted to combine resources to bring in more robust professional development programming. But even with both budgets, their preferred … [Read more...] about ‘We pulled a profit of $7,000’