I don’t live in the “zone”, but I am not that far outside of it. What seems to be getting lost in this conversation is the broader context surrounding firefighter exposure and occupational health risks. For decades, firefighters have been routinely exposed not only to firefighting foams containing PFAS, but also to an enormous range of toxic substances released during structure fires. Every time a home burns, firefighters can be exposed to smoke and combustion byproducts from plastics, synthetic fabrics, electronics, furniture, building materials, cleaning products, and countless other chemicals that are now a part of modern life.

The cumulative impact of these exposures has contributed to significantly elevated cancer rates within the firefighting profession. Studies have shown that firefighters face approximately a 9% higher risk of being diagnosed with cancer and a 14% higher risk of dying from cancer compared to the general population. Increased rates have been observed for several cancers, including skin cancer, kidney cancer, and mesothelioma. For many firefighters, these risks are not theoretical—they are an unfortunate reality of a career spent protecting their communities. (Source: Firefighter Cancer Support Network)

None of this is meant to minimize concerns about PFAS contamination. No one wants PFAS in drinking water, and communities should absolutely work toward reducing exposure wherever possible. However, it is important to recognize that PFAS are not limited to firefighting foam. These chemicals have historically been used in a wide variety of consumer products that many people have had in their homes, including nonstick cookware, stain-resistant fabrics, food packaging, waterproof materials, and other everyday items.

At the same time, PFAS are only one piece of a much larger environmental picture. We should also be having conversations about the many other chemicals introduced into our environment every day—from lawn fertilizers and herbicides to insecticides, deer repellents, and other landscaping products. These substances can enter streams, groundwater, and reservoirs through runoff and ultimately impact water quality as well.

If our goal is truly to protect public health and our natural resources, the discussion should be comprehensive rather than focused on a single source. Addressing PFAS is important, but so is examining all of the chemicals that find their way into our environment and water systems. A balanced conversation acknowledges both the need to reduce contamination and the significant sacrifices firefighters have made while working in environments that expose them to far greater concentrations of toxic substances than most people will ever encounter. (https://www.firefightercancersupport.org/resources/faq)

Also, if I have not lost your attention yet, please consider following a new documentary that will be screening in Worcester, MA at the Hanover Theater on 8/6: Burning Down the House

Table of Contents:

• Typeface vs. Font

• Character vs. Glyph

• Roman vs. roman

• Em Dash Vs. En Dash Vs. Hyphen

• Punctuation

• Dash It Right!

🤓 Type Terms People Mix Up All the Time

Typeface vs. Font

A typeface is the overall design of the letters — think of it as the "look" (like Helvetica or Times New Roman). A font is how that design is delivered — the actual file or set of characters you use to type. Back in the days of metal type, a font was the physical block of type; today, it’s the digital file you install and use.

Most people use these words interchangeably — but type nerds? They know the difference and care deeply.

Character vs. Glyph

A character is the basic symbol — like the letter "a". A glyph is how that character appears — a specific visual version (like a, 𝒶, or 𝓪). Unicode assigns a unique code to each character, not each glyph. Multiple glyphs can represent the same character.

Roman vs. roman

Roman (capital R) refers to the empire or to the Latin alphabet itself. But when you’re talking about type styles, like roman vs. italic, it’s lowercase roman.

Em Dash Vs. En Dash Vs. Hyphen

• Hyphen (-)

  • Two words brought together as a compound may be written separately, written as one word, or connected by hyphens. For example, three modern dictionaries all have the same listings for the following compounds:
    hair stylist
    hairsplitter
    hair-raiser

• En dash (–)

  • The en dash usually replaces "to" between numbers.
    Please join us on Saturday, 1:00–4:00, to celebrate our son's birthday. But you wouldn't write, Please join us on Saturday from 1:00–4:00. If from precedes the numbers, you need to write to between the numbers.
    The New England Patriots beat the Falcons, 34–28.

• Em dash (—)

  • The em dash can be used in place of a colon, commas, and parentheses.
    I have two pets—a dog and a cat. --> Dash used in place of a colon.
    My two pets—a dog and a cat—are quite rambunctious. --> You could replace the dashes with commas or parentheses.

  • I use an em dash to indicate that a speaker has been interrupted.
    "I was going to tell you that—"

  • The em dash can be used to signify an abrupt change in thought, as well.
    "I was going to tell you that—hold on, someone is at the door."

On a Mac? Here are some keystrokes to help you!

Here's the PC (Windows) equivalent of the Mac keystrokes above, for use in word processing and design software:

DASHES

• Em Dash (—)

  • Alt + 0151 (numeric keypad) or Ctrl + Alt + - (on numeric keypad in Word)

• En Dash

  • (–)Alt + 0150 or Ctrl + - (on numeric keypad in Word)

• Hyphen (-)

  • Regular - key

• Discretionary Hyphen

  • Ctrl + - (soft hyphen in Word)

PUNCTUATION

• ‘ Single Open Quote

  • Alt + 0145

• ’ Single Close Quote

  • Alt + 0146

• “ Double Open Quote

  • Alt + 0147

• ” Double Close Quote

  • Alt + 0148

• … Ellipsis

  • Alt + 0133

OTHER MARKS

• En Space

  • Use the Character Map (U+2002) or insert from Symbols in Word

• † Dagger

  • Alt + 0134

• ‡ Double Dagger

  • Alt + 0135

• © Copyright

  • Alt + 0169

• ® Registered

  • Alt + 0174

• € Euro Symbol

  • Ctrl + Alt + E or Alt + 0128

• fi fi ligature

  • Use OpenType font features or insert from glyphs panel

• fl fl ligature

  • Same as above

• é Accent Aigu

  • Alt + 0233

• è Accent Grave (e)

  • Alt + 0232

• à Accent Grave (a)

  • Alt + 0224

• ç Cedilla

  • Alt + 0231

• ü Umlaut (u)

  • Alt + 0252

• ö Umlaut (o)

  • Alt + 0246

💡 Tip for Windows users: You can also use Character Map (charmap in Start Menu) or Unicode shortcuts in apps like Word (type the code then press Alt + X, e.g., 2014 + Alt + X = —).

Punctuation

Quotation marks are also often misused: often what you see on your keyboard, is actually only supposed to be used for inch marks. The correct way is to have open and close quotation marks. Sometimes these are incorporated into a font to automatically be used when you type. Check to make sure there’s a difference between the opening and closing quote mark.

Week 15 Chat: ✍️ Dash It Right!

Not all dashes are created equal — can you tell when to use a hyphen (-), en dash (–), or em dash (—)?

Below are three phrases with a missing dash. Your job? Choose the correct mark to complete each one like a true type pro. Trust your instincts — and remember: size does matter in typography!

👉 Fill in each blank with the correct dash or hyphen.

1. well ___ known author

2. Monday ___ Friday

3. She had one goal ___ to win.

Place your answers into this week’s chat!

Start a Substack

If you haven’t yet, start with…

Part 1 or

Every link in one place

OUTSOURCED

– Shannon McNamara –

Copyright Notice:
Outsourced © 2008 Shannon McNamara. All rights reserved. This work may not be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the author, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law.

If you have permission from the author to share the story online, you may also include:

"Shared online with permission from the author."

Are you enjoying? Please consider supporting my writing with a PayPal donation! Click below:

Buy me a cup of Coffee!

“Another bottle, please.” The woman grabbed the empty one and gave me a look of sympathy and shock. She knew. I used to wait tables. We always knew.

He held his glass up as a toast. The rest of the table begrudgingly followed the lead, me included.

“To being adults,” he toasted with performative grace.

I took a sip, and it tasted bitter. Brian didn’t sip at all. Kelly followed my example and emptied her entire glass.

“So, how has work been going, Brian? Still billing junior associate hours at partner rates?” Andrew smirked, clearly enjoying this entire charade.

“We’ve been busy.”

“Busy?” Andrew leaned back in his chair and casually draped his arm over the back of mine. My spine stiffened, and I felt like I was sweating through my deodorant, even in the cold air-conditioned room. I made eye contact with the waitress who was back in the shadows. She emerged like a white shirted savior in that moment.

“Good evening, and welcome everyone to Harbor & Hearth. I am Brianne, and I will be your waitress this evening. We have already started with one of our best wines, but might I interest you in something to nibble on at the table while the chef prepares your main entrees?”

“I took the liberty of ordering the Chef’s sampling this evening,” Andrew turned and smiled at me. Did he think that was going to help this entire train wreck?

“How about an hors d'oeuvre?” I looked with pleading eyes at Brianne. She nodded and seemed to see what I was doing here.

“Oh yes, I can definitely send out a sampling of the starter menu. How does that sound for the table?”

“Lovely, “I answered before anyone could interject. I needed to find a way out of here, and after two glasses of wine, I needed to think clearly with some food in my stomach.

Next week I will stop drinking. Seriously.

“Great idea, Meg.” Andrew tapped the back of my chair with a rap rap.

“So Brian, that last brief I sent over today. Riddled with typos. But I understand, hard to focus on multi-tasking when you are busy texting the paralegals.”

I stared blankly at the wall. I couldn’t even gaze in that direction. Kelly let out a slight puff of air. I thought I wanted this, but it was honestly way too much.

“Andrew,” I started as a whisper.

Instead of laying off, I received a maddeningly menacing smile.

“Don’t worry, Meg. I’m just recognizing Brian’s talent. His diverse skillset.”

He stared. Brian stared back.

I looked down at my hands. My skin was prickling against the silk in the dress. I realized I was in a costume and this was nothing more than a show, where I had become some sort of carnival side attraction. What was my role?

Ex-lover?

New lover?

Someone seeking closure?

I didn’t even know anymore.

“Excuse me,” I pushed the chair away from the table with all my might and stood up, feeling the weight of both glasses of wine sloshing inside my brain.

Four sets of eyes looked up at me.

Andrew.

Brian.

“I’ll be right back.”

I grabbed my purse and hurried away from the table, and felt an arm grab me and pull me towards a set of doors.

It was our waitress.

“The bathrooms are right here.” She gave me a knowing look.

“Thank you, Brianne.”

“I can wait outside the door if you need me to.”

“Thanks.” I began to push the door open when I realized there was more she wanted to say.

“What is it? I really need to know.”

She sighed.

“This isn’t the first time he has pulled this. I’m sorry.” Brianne whispered to me in a hushed tone.

“He pulled it on me, too.” I spun around to my left and saw Kelly standing there in the hallway.

What?

“Go in, we’ll chat.” Her eyes showed no remorse or empathy as she pushed me into the doorway and slipped the lock down silently behind us.

Kelly pulled a lipstick out of her neat, small bag and began to apply it at the mirror.

“Andrew and I were a thing,” she expertly applied a red to her lips, I would never be able to pull off.

She stopped for a moment, catching my eye in the mirror.

“If you are waiting for an apology for what happened with Brian, sorry. He pursued me, and that’s the best you are going to get from me.”

“Listen, I don’t need this. I’m just going to go.” I began to push the lock open on the door when she spun back to me.

“No, just wait. We aren’t going to leave this bathroom ready to braid each other’s hair, but I think you should hear what I have to say.”

I paused.

“Ok, fine, you said he pulled this with you? What do you mean?”

I hated that I was curious. But I was. I spun and stared her down at the sinks.

She sighed and put the lipstick back in the bag.

“I was you in the scenario last time. Let me guess, he bought you that dress? Driver picked you up at your place, and you had no idea where you were going tonight? Then bam, you walk in and find yourself face to face with your ex and their new love interest at a back table lit with candles?”

Damn.

Because this restaurant was remarkably fancy, this was not your ordinary bathroom. We were in a sort of lounge area before you got to the stalls. There was a wall of mirrors, and across from the mirrors were two highback chairs with a table between them. Kelly motioned to the seats.

“One second,” I flipped the bathroom lock quickly and looked to see if Brianne was still outside the door.

She was, oh, bless her.

“Hey, think you can bring us a bottle of red, two glasses, and put it on asshole’s tab?”

She smiled, happy to be a part of this scheme.

“But of course, Meg.”

A few moments later, there was a small knock on the door, and Brianne passed me two glasses and what looked to be a very expensive bottle of Pinot Noir.

I placed the bottle and the glasses on the table and took a seat across from Kelly.

“Ok, go on.” I poured us both a glass and took a sip of mine. I didn’t want to be off kilter when making decisions this evening.

“This was three years ago. I had been dating one of the other lawyers at the firm, Andrew, and he had been rising together through the ranks, and there was a lot of speculation as to whether Andrew’s father was going to head the call of nepotism and make his baby boy partner, or if Mark might be the one who got the spot.”

She paused and took a sip.

“Mark and I had been dating for about a year at that point. I was his paralegal, but no one knew we were seeing each other. It’s not necessarily frowned upon, but I was new there and I was the one who didn’t want people to think what they were going to think.”

I took another sip, because it had to be said.

“Aren’t you Brian’s paralegal? Didn’t care about what it looked like anymore?”

I wasn’t going to let her sit here and just spin her Cinderella story without my input.

She sighed.

“Not that it matters, but I’m actually not Brian’s paralegal. I work with Mr. McCabe, one of the other partners.”

Right, I remembered the firm’s full name then. Tullson, McCabe, and Reynolds.

“Now that we have that cleared up, can I finish?” She glared over the glass at me. She was right, we were not going to leave this bathroom as friends.

“Go on.” I motioned with my hand for her to continue.

“The next part will be rumor, but I feel like it needs to be said. Later on, and it was much later on, I might add, I heard that Andrew was the one to invite Mark out for drinks after work. They were both working on a major property acquisition, and the whispers around the office were that whoever pulled this off was going to be made a partner. Mark was putting in crazy hours, which meant I was putting in crazy hours alongside him. I didn’t mind, but I was also clearly still his subordinate, and he was beginning to act more like a boss with this promotion coming, rather than a boyfriend.”

I looked over at the mirrors and could see just the tops of our bodies above the marble counter’s surface. Two women, sitting in the chairs of an alternate universe, enjoying an expensive bottle of wine neither could afford on their own, gossiping while their partners were back at the dusk-lit mahogany table.

Oh my God, what was happening at that table?

I sipped again. That was for them to figure out.

Part 35

Are you enjoying? Please consider supporting my writing with a PayPal donation! Click below:

Buy me a cup of Coffee!

Table of Contents:

• Spot the Crimes

• Common Typography Problems

• Typography Crimes, Caught in the Wild!

Typography: You’re Mastering the Craft—Now Spot the Crimes!

By now, I hope you're proudly embracing your inner type nerd! You've explored the beauty and variety of typography, learned essential rules, and practiced applying them in both creative and practical ways.

Next up: type crimes 🔍
We’ll be looking at common design mistakes—can you spot them before they strike? 👀

But first, check out this fun video that shows how type can be used as an image:
🎥

Common Typography Problems

Lines of text too long.

Should be a maximum of 65-75 characters.

Text too close to edge of page. Space should be greater than space between lines of text.

Text too close to other items, graphics, pictures, etc.

Text is unreadable over the background

• Dark text on dark background (no contrast)

• Light text over light background (no contrast)

• Text over a multi-colored background

Bold body text.

All Caps body text (generally a bad idea).

Scripted fonts used as all-caps

Too much use of handwritten fonts

Fonts are distorted. Why is this bad?

Vertically stacked text (only works in limited situations)

First line indent too large.

Should only be 2 em spaces (em = the x-height, or about the width of a lowercase "m")

Inconsistent spacing after paragraphs.

Too many "effects" used on the text, blur, shading, blends, bevels, shadows, gradient fills

Outlined body text

Body text is too large

Widows and Orphans at the end of a paragraph.

So … Many … Effects!

🕵️‍♀️ Week 14: Typography Crimes, Caught in the Wild!

👀 Got your phone? Good — because this week, you're on the lookout for bad typography in its natural habitat.

Your mission:
📸 Snap photos of cringe-worthy fonts, chaotic kerning, or layout disasters you spot out in the world — signs, menus, posters, you name it.
💬 Upload them to the chat and let your fellow Substackers weigh in on the “type crimes” you've uncovered.

Let the font-shaming begin! 😆🧯🔎

Place your answers into this week’s chat!

Start a Substack

If you haven’t yet, start with…

Part 1 or

Every link in one place

OUTSOURCED

– Shannon McNamara –

Copyright Notice:
Outsourced © 2008 Shannon McNamara. All rights reserved. This work may not be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the author, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law.

If you have permission from the author to share the story online, you may also include:

"Shared online with permission from the author."

Are you enjoying? Please consider supporting my writing with a PayPal donation! Click below:

Buy me a cup of Coffee!

- Chapter 21 -

I should have been upstairs getting ready for dinner, but I was sitting with my head in the fridge when the doorbell rang. I jumped at the sound and whacked my head with a thump into the top shelf.

That was going to leave a mark.

The kitchen door was open with the screen closed to let the air in and keep the almost summer evening bugs out. Meanwhile, the two dogs were snoring away on the living room sofa around the corner.

“Someone is kidnapping me. Help.” I whispered in their direction.

Nothing.

Maybe it’s Melissa coming over to help me get ready. I opened the screen to a man in brown shorts and a brown shirt.

Maybe not.

“Megan?”

He was holding a garment bag. He also seemed as baffled by this as I did.

“Yes?”

“You can sign here.” He handed me the little machine that looks like it takes credit cards and the stylus to sign my name.

I gave it back to him and took the bag.

“Who is this…” I never got it out.

“Don’t know.” He was halfway back down the walk.

I unzipped the bag and saw a beautiful one-shouldered floral dress.

Wear this tonight. – A

My phone buzzed.

ANDREW: The car will be there to pick you up in one hour. See you soon.

I stared confused at my phone with the dress in the other hand. What in the Pretty Woman was happening right now?

I should say no to all this.

Instead, I sent back a set of really weird emojis in no particular order and went upstairs to change and put on makeup.

I was just fixing a few loose strands and deciding if I needed lipstick or not when Jay came to the door.

“I can’t believe I’m saying this, but your car is here?”

“Oh.”

Yes to lipstick.

I popped it onto my lips and into my purse.

“So, is he your boyfriend?”

What a weird question in your mid-thirties.

“No. I don’t know. I don’t think so.”

“Nice dress.”

I looked down at it because, truth be told, I have no idea how on Earth he picked my size, and got it here from the time we never had lunch until now.

“Yeah, thanks.”

This was feeling weird. This was feeling really weird. Jay just stared.

“Ok, so I’m going to go. It’s a dinner.”

No shit.

“Cool.” He moved out of the doorway to let me out.

“Cool.” I walked down the hall and towards the stairs.

Instead of the SUV from lunch, this time there was a black Audi sedan with a woman driving.

“Ms. O’Rourke!” She was far friendlier and looked to be a few years younger than I was.

“Oh my God, please call me Meg.”

She opened the back door, and I slid into the seat. How does this work? Do I have to sit in the back? Don’t they get sad that no one sits up front with them?

I slid all the way over so I was behind the passenger seat and could at least converse in a less awkward way.

“So, interesting gig. How many ladies do you pick up for Andrew and dinner?” She looked at me in the rearview mirror.

“I’m kidding, I’m kidding. I get it, and also, if we are being honest. I really don’t want to know!”

She laughed at that.

“Honestly, at his age and with his bank account, not as many as you would expect. Mostly, I drive his mom and sister around. His dad retired from the firm, and I’ve been close with them and driving for them for the last ten years.”

“Seems like a pretty solid gig. I just got let go, well, I’m going to be let go this week. If this doesn’t work out with him in the romance category, maybe I can be their dog taxi or something.”

“Well, Bruno does like to go for rides!”

I laughed at that.

We exchanged names again. Hers was Sherri. She told me about her kids, how she was going to school, and this was a great job because it was flexible with her school and kids’ schedules. We discussed how kids today have it so good because they can Google, and how they have it awful because their entire lives are already online. Honestly, I didn’t even notice we had parked until she was opening her door and coming around to mine.

“Man! Well, if this dinner is a bust, where can I find you?” I was only half-joking.

“Don’t worry. I’ll be right out here the entire time. I’ll be bringing you home unless Mr. Tullson decides to let me go early.” She winked.

Yikes.

I tried to remember if I had shaved my legs.

The lighting alone inside Harbor & Hearth let me know that my dinner was going to cost more than my last paycheck from AdSmart. The Maitre d’ whisked me to the back of the room when I gave him my name. At one point, I believe I walked past one of our congressmen and the man who owned most of the waterfront.

Don’t make eye contact with anyone in here, Meg, my brain screamed.

“And here we are, Ms. O’Rourke.”

I turned to say thank you, as I took in the beautiful table setting, delicious-looking breadbasket, bottle of white wine chilling, candles, and Brian and Kelly seated at the circular table around the bend from Andrew.

“What the fuck?”

Oops.

“Oh! Not you,” I turned to the Maitre d’, who tried to hide his wide-eyed reaction. “Thank you.”

He gave everyone a head nod and bowed the hell out of this situation with the moves of a Cheshire cat. Poof. Gone.

Brian choked on the bite of bread in his mouth and clearly did not expect to see me either. As he stood up to do the customary, polite thing, one does when a female arrives at a table, Kelly looked up from her phone she had on the table, and began to blink rapidly.

“What is she…” she trailed off as Brian gave her a look with daggers in his eyes.

“Well, don’t you just look edible!” Andrew stood up and came around to the empty chair between himself and Brian. Pulling it out, he grabbed me by the wrists and put both arms out wide, putting me on display for the table. My stomach kept dropping into my knees. What on Earth was going on here?

“Glad it fits,” he whispered in my ear and pecked my cheek. The breadbasket now looked about as welcoming as a pile of sand, but I did pour myself a large glass of wine before I sat down. He winked at me and pushed my seat back in. The chair had arms that gave the illusion of locking its occupant into their seat. I was, for all intents and purposes, a prisoner of this barbaric double date.

I smiled tightly in my chair and took a large gulp of the chilled wine. After a breath and a thought, I tipped the rest of the glass back and emptied it.

“Hello,” I said to the rest of the table, my eyes inadvertently landing on Kelly.

“Oh, you must know Kelly,” Andrew began. I didn’t even look at him as he spoke. “Brian’s paralegal, of course.”

Of course.

“We haven’t formally met.” I spit out.

Of course, Andrew had positioned her at the table this way. It sat six, and the two remaining chairs held Kelly’s purse and Andrew’s suit coat. I was stuck at the point in an awkward triangle with Andrew and Brian at my sides and Kelly across from me as the base. Her back was trapped against the wall, with nowhere to go, at least if I pushed this mammoth of a chair back, I could escape easily. I kept that in the back of my mind.

“So, I didn’t expect this,” I began. I don’t know why I needed them to know that this was not my masterful planning, but I did. For my own self-preservation and dignity.

“No, you did not. For that matter, neither did they. Andrew took my left hand in a very bizarre way and kissed it. I felt the need to go wash it in the bathroom and run out the back door. “I thought it might be nice. Old friends, new friends. Showing we can be civilized, right?”

He looked at Brian, and although I was so angry with Brian, so very angry. I actually felt pity for him in this moment. This was gross.

“Meg.” Brian nodded his head at me.

“Brian.” I nodded back. Even he didn’t deserve what was happening here.

“Kelly.” I nodded at her. Her head whipped back up; she had been staring at her lap through this entire awkward conversation.

“Meg.” She said through tight lips.

Fuck it, let’s drink, I thought. I went to grab the bottle.

“Oh, allow me!” Andrew said. He poured a glass for everyone and signaled to a waitress, who, up until now, I hadn’t noticed was lurking in a shadow.

Part 34

Are you enjoying? Please consider supporting my writing with a PayPal donation! Click below:

Buy me a cup of Coffee!

Table of Contents:

• Typography Terms

• Midterm Quiz

Typesetting

The term “typesetting” dates back to the early days of printmaking, when individual letter blocks had to be physically set into frames according to the layout of each project. While we now use computers instead of metal type, the term lives on—referring to the choices a designer makes with fonts, spacing, and type tool settings.

Next up, you’ll learn some essential rules and guidelines to help you make thoughtful, effective typesetting decisions. You’ll also practice applying them in a few creative projects.

To kick things off, enjoy this short video—it gives just a glimpse of the enormous range of fonts out there, from A to Z. It’s easy to see why a few rules can go a long way!

Personal Invitations as a Design Study

Designing personal invitations is a fascinating area to explore. Invitations can be created for digital or print, and their style can range from traditional to trendy—often shaped by the location, occasion, or people involved. Regardless of the format or style, one thing remains essential: clear communication. The effectiveness of an invitation depends heavily on its hierarchy and organization, which are guided by strong typographic choices and solid design principles.

Typography & Design Principles

There are many type techniques that help organize content and guide the reader through an invitation. These techniques work hand in hand with the four basic principles of design: Contrast, Repetition, Alignment, and Proximity—also known as C.R.A.P.

• Contrast
  Leads the reader’s eye by creating visual hierarchy. It helps direct attention to the most important information first.

• Repetition
  Brings consistency and unity to the design, reinforcing both the look and message.

• Alignment
  Creates structure and balance, giving your design a polished, intentional feel.

• Proximity
  Groups related content together to make logical sense. Good proximity includes generous margins and enough white space to separate different sections clearly.

Critiquing and Giving Feedback

Critique is one of the most valuable tools in your design journey. You’ll encounter it often—in school and in the professional world. Designers rarely create something in isolation; feedback and revision are part of the process.

To be useful, critiques need to be specific and constructive. Saying "I like that" is kind, but not very helpful. Instead, aim for feedback like:

• “This works well because…”

• “I think it might be stronger if…because…”

Keep in mind: design isn’t math. There’s rarely one single correct solution. As designers Kate Lawless and Shannon Crabill put it,

“Design isn’t math. There are … only subjective opinions that may differ from one designer to another.”
(Lawless & Crabill, 2015)

Ultimately, as the designer, it’s your job to weigh the feedback and make the final call.

Reference

Lawless, K., & Crabill, S. (2015, March 27). How to give and receive a good design critique. Retrieved May 8, 2016, from AIGA.org

Can a typographic wedding invitation be beautiful?

🔔 💍 Week 13: Wedding Bells!

💬 Assignment: Evaluating Wedding Invitation Designs

This week, you’ll step into the role of a designer who has been approached by a couple to create a text-focused wedding invitation—no photos, just beautiful type and layout.

But instead of designing just yet, you’ll begin like any good designer: with research and evaluation.

📌 Note: You are not designing an invitation yet—this assignment is focused on research, critique, and design thinking.

📝 What to Include in Your Assignment:

1. Design Research Questions
   Imagine you're interviewing the couple. Besides needing the names, date, and location, what two questions would you ask to help guide your design decisions?
   (Examples might relate to theme, tone, culture, colors, etc.)

2. Your Imagined Answers
   Provide your own made-up answers to those two questions. These should reflect what you envision for the couple and their event.

3. Two Examples of Invitations
   Find two text-based wedding invitation designs online that could serve as inspiration. Embed or link to the images (see your course’s instructions for how to do this).

4. Evaluation & Critique
   For each design:

   • What aspects work well? (Consider font choices, hierarchy, spacing, tone, layout, etc.)

   • What aspects could be improved?

   • What would you change to better suit your client’s imagined needs? (Think about typography, layout, emphasis, or color palette.)

🧠 Goal

This assignment builds your ability to analyze design, ask the right questions, and visualize solutions before you ever open your design software. It’s a key part of the creative process.

Place your answers into this week’s chat!

Start a Substack

If you haven’t yet, start with…

Part 1 or

Every link in one place

OUTSOURCED

– Shannon McNamara –

Copyright Notice:
Outsourced © 2008 Shannon McNamara. All rights reserved. This work may not be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the author, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law.

If you have permission from the author to share the story online, you may also include:

"Shared online with permission from the author."

Are you enjoying? Please consider supporting my writing with a PayPal donation! Click below:

Buy me a cup of Coffee!

I walked past the line that had already staked out the sidewalk, so I could give a glance into the crowded, standing-room-only area in front of the counter. The owner was running back and forth, flinging sandwiches up on the formica and yelling names. His daughter rang up at the register, taking money and throwing change over and over again. Nowhere in the midst of this chaos was a man in a designer suit and tie. I backed away from the door before the mob tarred me for cutting the line.

I perched on the edge of the curb and pulled my cell phone out of my purse when I felt a whoosh of air behind me and heard, “Megan, hop in.”

I turned to see a slick black SUV with the back window down and Andrew smiling from the seat. He had a driver up front who did not glance in my direction or even acknowledge my presence.

“I thought we were meeting for lunch. I hate to say this to you, but we are going to have to get in line. Manny does not care how nice you look; he’s going to make you wait for that sandwich just like everyone else.”

He smirked and shook two brown bags in the window.

“Get in.”

I obliged.

As I made my way around to the other side of the car, the driver’s side door opened, and an extremely large man got out, opened the back door without saying a word, and waited for me to get in.

“Oh, um, thank you.” I slid into the seat, and Andrew handed me a bag just as his phone rang. He put a finger up in the air and smiled at me.

“Henry, yes.” He paused and sipped from a bottle of iced tea. The fancy kind I never sprung for. He winked at me and handed over a cold bottle to go with my bagged sandwich.

“I hear you, Henry. Listen, before we proceed with this merger, we need to conduct a thorough title search. I won’t want to run into any encumbrances on the properties involved, and I don’t want any surprises with this deal. My office will draft a letter of intent outlining those basic terms. Once we have this agreement in principle, we can move forward with due diligence. I’ll get on the horn with Town Hall. The guy there owes me a few favors.”

He motioned at the driver, and we pulled away from the curb, navigating back down Main Street and turning right at the light.

“I need to know that the local zoning authority can confirm that everything complies with all the municipal regulations. Again, I am not fond of surprises when there is this much money on the line. We will also need to review the deeds and confirm that there are no easements or restrictive covenants that could affect the land use. You know how it was thirty years ago, it was the Wild West with the utility companies paying off every homeowner in town to use part of their land as an easement for the utility.”

We turned again and came up to a small park with a parking lot attached. I had parked my Jeep there to walk over to the deli. At least I was saving myself a walk back, I guess. I took a sip of the iced tea. Damn, that was good. Might be worth the splurge next time.

“So yes, figure this out. Then and only then will we prepare the necessary documents for filing with the land registry. Honestly, we should be prepared to execute this formal merger agreement within the next few weeks. I’ll have the paralegals at my office schedule a call to discuss the draft merger agreement and get one of the other lawyers to do the grunt work on this. By that point, the necessary approvals and red tape with the town should be tied up.”

He took another swig of the iced tea, and at this point, I had no idea what to do. I began to slowly tear at the paper of my sandwich bag. I was starving. As I moved the bag and the paper crumpled, the driver in the front glanced up and looked at me in the rearview. I immediately stopped and sat still. Great.

“Well, you tell me, Henry? If that is what you want, a deed of trust, we can consider this. Yes, this will definitely secure the financial aspects of the merger. I am not questioning or arguing that with you. Great. Yes. Once everything is in place, we’ll execute the final documents and ensure the land is properly consolidated in accordance with the town and state laws. Ok, I’ll have my team follow up with your team. Yes. Talk soon.”

He hung up without a goodbye.

“Hello,” he turned to me.

I just sat there, not sure if we were supposed to eat in the car or what was going on here. All I knew was I was starving, and drinking iced tea seemed to be acceptable.

“Umm, hello?”

The iPhone lit up again.

Andrew sighed and gave me the “one-moment” finger.

“Andrew.”

I tried to get the eye of the driver, but he was back to looking out the windshield. I turned to look out at the park and decided to step out of the SUV. This was ridiculous. I could have eaten at work and actually had a conversation. Why bother calling for lunch if you are going to be on the phone the whole time?

We get it, you are important.

I quietly opened the door and just as quietly clicked it closed; his driver never acknowledged any of this taking place. This must be an everyday part of this job? I walked over to the bench. The sun was shining and the wood felt warm against my legs and arms. Ok fine, it could be worse. I could be in the musty breakroom, pushing dust off the tables before I ate.

I heard footsteps behind me and smiled to myself as I turned around. Better late than never.

It was not Andrew.

“Oh, sorry, I thought you were…”

“Mr. Tulson regrets that he will not be able to accompany you during lunch as he has some work that needs his attention back at the office. I drove back here to where your vehicle was so you would not be inconvenienced and need to walk back with your lunch.”

“So, he knew this before I got in the car?”

“I’m not at liberty to discuss Mr. Tulson’s schedule, ma’am.”

Ma’am. Yikes.

“Ok, thank you, Mr…” I looked back up, but he was on his way back to the SUV. Ok then.

I sat for a second, trying to decide whether to go back to work to eat or just dive into the sandwich right here on the bench. As is usually the case, my stomach got the better of me. I opened the bag and pulled out a turkey with Swiss cheese on whole wheat. It would not have been my first choice.

I heard a trill and grabbed my ringing phone out of my purse.

ANDREW

Before I could even say hello, the voice on the other end started talking quickly.

“I’m sorry about that. Work. You know how it is.”

“Yeah, that’s fine. Sure.” I mumbled back. The top piece of bread was starting to slide off the meat and towards my lap. I hurried and put the phone between my ear and my shoulder so I could finagle the sandwich back together.

“I shouldn’t have scheduled this today. I tried to be spontaneous and look where it got me. So I am going to make it up to you. Dinner tonight.”

I licked the mayo off my fingers and sighed.

“Listen, it’s ok. You don’t have to…”

“No, I want to. This time we will go out. No grill, no sandwiches, a real sit-down dinner. And some good wine.”

I laughed.

“So, what you are saying is you served me bad wine last time?” I smirked despite myself.

“Never.”

The line disconnected.

He really had a habit of not saying goodbye, didn’t he?

I took a bite of the colossal mess in my hands. The turkey wasn’t half bad.

Part 33

Are you enjoying? Please consider supporting my writing with a PayPal donation! Click below:

Buy me a cup of Coffee!

Table of Contents:

• Typography Terms

• Midterm Quiz

Typography Terms

The Nielsen Norman Group’s article "Typography Terms Every UX Designer Should Know" offers a clear, user-focused overview of essential typography vocabulary, specifically tailored for digital and user experience (UX) design. Students can learn the definitions and visual examples of core terms like baseline, x-height, kerning, tracking, and leading—helping them better understand how text functions on a screen. The article emphasizes how good typography enhances readability, accessibility, and overall user experience in interfaces. By mastering these terms, students can communicate more effectively with design teams and make intentional, professional typographic choices in both web and app design projects.

https://www.nngroup.com/articles/typography-terms-ux/

📝 Week 12: Midterm Check-In — Show What You Know!

Submission Instructions:

Midterm Quiz - Google Classroom

Take the midterm in the Google Classroom Link Above:

If you are a paid subscriber to the Substack, you can submit a Screenshot of your assignment in the chat for grading.

Start a Substack

If you haven’t yet, start with…

Part 1 or

Every link in one place

OUTSOURCED

– Shannon McNamara –

Copyright Notice:
Outsourced © 2008 Shannon McNamara. All rights reserved. This work may not be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the author, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law.

If you have permission from the author to share the story online, you may also include:

"Shared online with permission from the author."

Are you enjoying? Please consider supporting my writing with a PayPal donation! Click below:

Buy me a cup of Coffee!

- Chapter 20 -

Tuesday.

Jim was back. He was walking behind Mr. Plein down the hall of AdSmart towards the Graphics room. Actually, he looked just like his shadow. They had on amazingly similar suits. I rolled my chair out and peered over at him.

He stared at me.

I stared back.

“Meg, great, you’re here.” Mr. Plein stopped at my cubicle, and I continued my stare directly into Plein’s dead gray eyes.

“Jim is going to sit with you today to go over the proof returns from overseas. I could explain it all, but Jim’s more equipped to discuss this with you, so um, yeah, I’ll leave you two to it.” He seemed freaked out by my stare.

Good.

“Well, Jim, let’s see what your boys did.”

I grabbed the stack of proofs right out of his hand and didn’t bother to offer him a seat. Let’s see if he can stand for two hours without moving.

“Hmm, well, I see a problem on this first one.”

“Really, Megan, and what is that?”

“Well, Jim, Jim-er,” crap, what was the full name of someone named Jim? James?

“Well, James,” I corrected and gave an awkwardly long stare, “we can’t send this first one over to the client. They spelled their name wrong.”

I circled the misspelled name.

“Do they proofread over there?” It sounded like a pretty basic question, but man, this was a shit show already.

“To save money, we have found that it is not necessary to hire proofreaders. We tell our designers to spell check, and ultimately it is up to the customer to make sure everything is correct.”

Bobby the proofreader rolled out of his cubicle and shook his fist ceremoniously in Jim’s direction, then rolled back to his desk.

“Well, Jim, in a perfect world, that would be fine. However, most of our customers don’t even check to make sure their own phone number is correct; they are too busy looking at the pictures. Secondly, ninety-nine percent of them send in their ad copy riddled with their own spelling errors, which proves that they wouldn’t catch one. You need to have each of these proofread.”

“Our market studies disagree with your assessment, Megan.”

“Fine by me, then why are you having me look at these? I guess send them off to the clients.” I handed the stack back to him.

“Well, I would like you to look over the rest of them and see if there are any other errors like that.” He handed the stack back to me.

“Well, I don’t want to argue with your marketing research. So send them. I’m not a proofreader.” I turned around at my desk and logged onto fark.com. Maybe there were some interesting headlines posted in the last ten minutes.

Jim pivoted behind me.

“Daniel, I would like you to look these ads over and see if there are any problems with them before we send them over to the clients.”

“Why certainly, James, I consider myself to be an expert proofreader. Let me have a looksee and I’ll be sure to let you know if I see any problems.”

Danny grabbed the stack from Jim and opened up the first ad, peering at it intensely. I knew he was full of shit right then, so I tried to keep myself from cracking up laughing.

Danny put the first ad down.

“Well, other than the misspelled name, I don’t see anything wrong with this one.” He picked up the next few ads, spending about a minute on each one, nodding every few lines, as though intently reading the ad copy like one would a best-selling novel.

“Good, good, good, and all the rest of them good, Jim. Tell your people over there that they did a fine job and no hard feelings on this side of the pond.”

Jim nodded his approval and walked the jobs over to Bobby to send emails to the clients.

I rolled my chair over to Danny’s keyboard.

“So?”

“Jealous?”

“Very, now tell me, were they all actually ok, or were you bullshitting?”

“Well, let’s just say the client’s name being misspelled wasn’t the only thing wrong with that first one. The phone number only had six numbers, the hours said 111am to 10 pm, and they forgot to update the expiration date from the file you sent them from 2006. Well played on that one, too. Well played.”

“I figured a little curveball wouldn’t hurt.”

“Haha, seriously, oh, and FYI, the first one was the least messed up of all of them. The rest just looked like crap. I was mostly marveling at how on Earth someone who called themselves a designer could even manage to come up with the layout they did. This is going to be funny. I almost wish they’d keep us on another week so I can be here when the phone calls start pouring in!”

I gave him a fist pump and rolled back to my desk. I was going to devote the rest of the day to searching for a new job and updating my resume. I was so behind the ball on my resume. I hadn’t updated it in the last three years. It was definitely something I should have done when I found out this was all going down last week.

I figured a nice-looking resume would make me feel like less of a charity case. It would be the only way to start moving on from this horrible chapter in my life. A new resume would mean a new job, which also meant a new home and, hopefully, a new relationship. This, of course, then equaled closing the book on AdSmart and Brian.

Ten minutes later, I had figured out how to describe my job duties at AdSmart when my cell phone buzzed and jarred me back to reality.

Text message from Andrew. Oh, right, him. So about that date, Sunday night. We went for a ride, the weather got really bad, and I decided to leave. That was when it got a little awkward. He went in for a goodnight kiss. I gave him the female equivalent of a man hug.

Andrew: Lunch?

Lunch? Well, a lunch date was definitely a friend thing. I needed to let him know that I wanted nothing more than casual. The kiss thing had really freaked me out. I realized between that and the drunken phone call from Brian that I was not ready to jump back into this whole relationship thing.

I responded back. Sure, where?

Andrew: How about the deli on Main Street in fifteen minutes?

I was noticing a trend with Andrew. Dinner at his place, no questions. Lunch down the street, now.

I saved my resume and grabbed my purse. If I left now, I could possibly be there in eighteen minutes.

“Lunch time for me. See you bozos later.” I yelled over the wall to Danny.

“Lunch? Where are we going?” He jumped out of his seat.

“Ooh, sorry, no go, buddy. Just me.”

“What! Do you have a date?” Danny cocked his head to the side and gave me a slight smile. I scowled.

Jay rolled out of his cubicle.

“Where are you going to lunch?”

“Just the deli on Main Street. Geez, talk about the Spanish Inquisition!” I left before they could ask me who with again.

Nineteen minutes later, I was trying to find a parking spot on Main Street during the busy lunch hour. I finally just hopped the Jeep onto the curb and got out. The deli was a half block away, and I could see the line was already out the door.

This particular establishment was well known in town, and they always had pre-made sandwiches you could just grab off the counter. The problem was that everyone grabbed a sandwich, but you still had to pay. I had an idea for a five-dollar cup a few years ago. The sandwiches were four ninety-nine. The owner could keep the penny, and we could all be on our merry way. He thought people might steal his sandwiches, because the people all the way out their door might not wander off after ten minutes.

I digress.

Part 32

Are you enjoying? Please consider supporting my writing with a PayPal donation! Click below:

Buy me a cup of Coffee!

Table of Contents:

• Font Categories

• Type Categories, Classifications, and Font Families

• Exploring and Using Adobe Fonts

• Week 11 Assignment

Font Categories

With all the font offerings available to designers, organizing fonts into categories is a helpful way to narrow your options and choose a typeface that fits your purpose. Familiarity with these classifications will also help you communicate more clearly with other designers and clients.

Type Categories, Classifications, and Font Families

In the 19th century, printers and type foundries began separating fonts into classifications based on shared characteristics. The two broadest categories are serif and sans serif. Serif fonts have small finishing strokes, or “feet,” at the ends of characters—originally inspired by the chisel marks left in stone carving. Sans serif fonts lack these strokes ("sans" meaning “without” in French), giving them a cleaner, more modern look.

Within these broader categories, fonts are often further classified into subgroups such as Humanist/Old Style, Transitional, Modern, and Slab Serif (also known as Egyptian). More recently, additional classifications have emerged for styles like Monospaced, Handwritten, Script, Decorative, and Blackletter.

A font family refers to a group of typefaces that share a common design but vary in style—such as regular, bold, italic, condensed, or extended. While different font families may fall under the same classification, each one has its own name, design history, and intended use.

Exploring and Using Adobe Fonts

Your computer likely comes with several pre-installed fonts. However, these are often overused, especially by those unfamiliar with the impact of thoughtful font selection. While high-quality fonts like Univers, Sabon, and Clarendon offer professional polish, they typically require a licensing fee—much like using stock images. This cost can add up, especially if the font is only needed for a headline or single ad.

Fortunately, Adobe Creative Cloud users have access to Adobe Fonts, a vast library of professional-quality typefaces included with your subscription. Adobe Fonts allows you to easily browse and activate fonts for use in applications like InDesign, Illustrator, and Photoshop—without having to download and install them manually.

Note: Some font families offer multiple styles (e.g., light, regular, bold, italic), and you’ll need to activate each style individually in Adobe Fonts if you plan to use them.

🎨 Week 11 Assignment:

For this assignment, you will explore fonts in eight different type categories and evaluate their uses and proper applications.

Use Adobe Fonts to activate one font from each of the eight classification categories: Serif, Sans Serif, Slab Serif, Script, Blackletter, Mono, Handwritten, and Decorative, and add them to your Creative Cloud Library. Choose fonts that you do NOT already have installed on your computer. Use the Fonts, Details, and Availability tabs in Adobe Fonts for information about each font.

Assignment Instructions:

NOTE:
You can access Adobe Fonts through the Character menu in Adobe CC programs or at https://fonts.adobe.com

(If you are not already in an Adobe application, you will need to be logged into your Adobe account to access this.)

How to activate and sync fonts:
https://helpx.adobe.com/fonts/using/activate-fonts.html
(You should already have Creative Cloud installed.)

1. Using InDesign, create an 8.5” x 11” document with default margin settings.

2. Type the name of the font in that font, and label which classification it belongs to.

3. In a legible font, write a brief paragraph of 50–60 words that includes the following:

   • Why you chose that font

   • Who designed it

   • What type of personality you think it has and why

   • Where you might use it most often (e.g., headlines for an entertainment publication, body text for a corporation, specific commercial website, logo, etc.)

4. Present a total of 8 fonts—one from each classification.

5. Use the typesetting skills you have learned so far to present your information neatly and professionally. Keep the text aligned, legible, and within the margins.

6. Do not add color or any extra decorative elements; focus solely on the look of the fonts without distractions.

Submission Instructions:

Save your InDesign file as Typography101_Assignment2_FirstLast.indd

If you are a paid subscriber to the Substack, you can submit a Screenshot of your assignment in the chat for grading.

Start a Substack

If you haven’t yet, start with…

Part 1 or

Every link in one place

OUTSOURCED

– Shannon McNamara –

Copyright Notice:
Outsourced © 2008 Shannon McNamara. All rights reserved. This work may not be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the author, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law.

If you have permission from the author to share the story online, you may also include:

"Shared online with permission from the author."

Are you enjoying? Please consider supporting my writing with a PayPal donation! Click below:

Buy me a cup of Coffee!

- CHAPTER 19 -

“So it was awesome, you should have seen the look on that asses face when you threw the jobs at his feet, oh man.”

Danny grabbed a beer out of Jay’s fridge and jumped up on the counter.

I chuckled and took another sip of my own beer, grabbing a handful of chips.

“Yeah, sorry you got stuck doing it afterwards. My plan was to make him eat his own shit, not spread it around the department.”

“Ahh, no worries, there was nothing else going on anyway. He made you send the rest of the work over to those clowns. I spent at least two hours over at the fax machine. Didn’t even bother to come back and check what he was doing while he was gone either. I was kind of hoping he’d think I took off and just leave, but…”

“But,” Jay broke in, walking into the kitchen. “He just sat there in that damn chair and didn’t budge for the whole two hours.” He laughed as well and stole a glance in my direction. I gave him a quick smirk back.

“Seriously, he didn’t even pull out a phone to text anyone, go on the web, get up and pee, nothing! It was actually kind of amazing. I wish I had enough memory on my cell phone to get the whole thing on video. It would have made quite the YouTube time lapse of that idiot just sitting there for two hours without moving. Amazing, simply amazing.”

Jay continued to laugh to himself and grabbed a few chips from my bag.

“Alright, so what’s the plan? Are we meeting with your IT guy or what?” I looked at the clock on the microwave, and it was almost eight already. My plan for the evening was to have this done by now so I could be in bed with the rest of my book.

“Well, I called him up, and there’s a party at his place tonight, but he said he’s gonna be upstairs working anyway, and we can just drop in. He said he’ll let his associates know we are coming.”

“His associates?”

“He’s a hacker, Meg, he rolls deep.”

“Right.”

My phone buzzed at that moment, and I checked the screen. JASON (lil’ bro) flashed with his picture. I went to hit the end call button, but paused. We never talked, I should probably take this.

“Hey,” I answered and gave a little wave to Jay and Danny as I stepped out of the kitchen and onto the back deck. “What’s up?”

“Hey Meg, just checking in.” He paused, awkwardly.

“Oh,” I didn’t really know what to say either. “Everything ok? Mom and Dad there?” Maybe they had put him up to this. I hadn’t even spoken with my dad since I went to pick up the prom dress, and the sum total of the conversations I had with my mother revolved around whether or not we were or were not eating dinner together this week.

“Yeah, no, they aren’t here. I just, I don’t know. I feel bad. I know you have a lot going on, I’m only in school right now, and I haven’t really been around to help, but I started to feel bad about everything. I mean, you didn’t even call me.” Another pregnant pause.

He was right, I didn’t even call him. I didn’t even call my parents. They found out when they called the house phone, and Kelly answered.

“I don’t know, it just felt like it was my own shit, you know. I needed to just handle it and figure it out, and then I would, and I mean I did, sort of, let you all know.”

“Well, Jay told me that he lent you his truck to move your stuff.”

“You guys talk? He told you that?” I was a little confused. How long had they been talking to each other, and was it only about me?

“Yeah, I see him out a lot now, you know, seeing as I’m twenty-one and I can actually get into the bars legally.” He laughed on his end of the line.

“Oh, ok. That makes sense. I didn’t know that. You guys like, hang out?”

“Yeah. And I mean, the point is, you moved. As in, you had heavy things that needed to be lifted and carried out of a house. You have family. I don’t know why you never reach out to us and ask for help. It sometimes makes me feel like you forget I exist.”

I had a lump in my throat. He was right. There was a nine-year age gap between us, and sometimes I forgot he wasn’t twelve years old anymore.

“You’re right. I should have called. I just, I hate to admit it didn’t occur to me to call you and have you help me clean up this mess. Sometimes I forget that you aren’t a kid anymore. Also, screw you for going to the bar and playing pool with Jay! How about if you call me next time!”

He laughed on his end. We chatted a bit more about the classes he was taking at UMass and whether or not he should ask the girl out in his PoliSci class. I hung up and made a mental note to text him next week.

Danny popped his head out the door. “You ready?”

“Yes, let’s get this nonsense over with.” I downed the rest of my beer in two gulps. “I’m bringing the chips with me, though,” I said, grabbing the bag out of his hands

Ten minutes later, we were pulling up to a ridiculous scene, which says a lot considering the rest of the nonsense that had occurred this week.

“You’re kidding me, right?” I stepped out of the Jeep and gazed at the college freshman passed out on the front lawn of a frat house somewhere near the UMass campus.

“What?” Danny got out and put his baseball cap back on backwards and stepped over a pudgy kid who looked no older than eighteen, curled up in the fetal position, in close proximity to the sidewalk. We had narrowly missed hitting his arm that was stretching out into the street.

“Yeesh, these kids sure don’t know how to hang, it’s not even ten o’clock and they’re already Sharpie material.” Jay checked the kid for a pulse, moved his extended appendage next to his body, and gave me a thumbs up.

“Ok, let’s go in there, get this done, and be out of here before the cops show up.” I marched to the front door and swung it open without knocking. From the sound of the music, no one would have heard if I battered the thing with the front end of a tank.

“Wow, really?”

Danny walked up behind me, looked up, and started laughing.

It was a theme party.

90’s Night. And it was in full swing. There were kids packed into the front room near the door, heading up the stairs and down the hallway. I saw the entire cast of Clueless on four separate sets of co-eds. For every Cher, there was an off-brand Tai and Dionne. A girl in a skimpy top was in the corner doing a keg stand. I grabbed a red cup and got myself a drink to brace for the next half hour.

“Haha, who invited their mom?”

The rejected castmate from Jersey Shore swung an arm around my shoulder and nodded at Jay and Danny. I dumped my beer over his head. I hate to waste alcohol, but someone needed to teach this kid some manners.

“What the…”

“It was either that or a punch in the face. We can try that if you don’t get your damn paws off me.”

He backed up and headed towards his group of friends, who were laughing and pointing.

“Ok, who the hell are we looking for again?” I was over this.

I couldn’t imagine anyone with enough intel to hack into the computer systems at work living and operating in a house such as this.

“He goes by codename Zero.”

“Obviously,” I muttered under my breath and decided to take a chance and head upstairs. Jay and Danny followed me after grabbing three more beers.

I pushed my way past a couple making out, a girl who looked like she might throw up on them, and another girl who was not pleased with the situation and was sobbing violently and screaming that she was ‘going to kill Shauna’.

“This has to be it.” Danny pushed past me and headed to the second door on the right, flanked by two teenagers standing on either side. Were they keeping guard?

“What is this, the goddamn CIA? Jesus Christ!” Jay whispered in my ear and handed me a second cup of beer.

“Try to get this one down the hatch.” I could feel his breath on my ear, and my neck filled with goosebumps.

Danny walked up to the kid on the left of the door and nodded at him.

“Here for Zero. It’s Danny.”

Seriously?

“You have an appointment?” The kid replied and pulled an iPhone out of his pocket to check his calendar. He motioned to his friend on the other side, and they both checked the app. The other kid reached into his pocket, taking out his iPhone, and dialed a number.

“Zero, it’s Thunderbird Two. Your nine o’clock is here.”

He motioned at Jay and me.

“Who are your friends?”

“Oh, don’t worry, they’re cool. They’re part of this whole operation.” Danny gave a nod towards us, and I wasn’t exactly sure what the proper etiquette was regarding introductions.

“No specifics,” the kid replied to Danny, holding up his hand. “We don’t discuss business outside of the confines of the office.”

“Good to know,” I muttered. This was so bizarre.

The door opened, and a kid who didn’t look older than nineteen with dark-rimmed glasses and a Red Sox hat came into view.

“Danny, you have got to be kidding me!” I exclaimed, ready to head back down the stairs and walk home.

“I know, huh! This kid IS the best!”

Thirty-seven minutes later, I was eating my words. The kid was good. Zero had accessed the server at AdSmart and was in the process of dumping its contents onto the hard drives we brought with us. We were way too leery of sending the stolen files up into the cloud.

“So what’s a guy gotta do to get a girl like you to go out for a drink?” Some kid who looked nineteen and seconds away from throwing up on his shoes came out of the shadows and sat next to me on Zero’s bed.

“First, he has to be born before 1980.”

“Damn girl, you look good for your age.” He wrapped a sloppy arm around my shoulder, and the stale beer on his breath stung my nose. I made a face and turned away.

“Ok, cowboy, how about if you take a seat over there on the floor?” Jay removed him before he fell completely onto my lap and put him on a beanbag chair. He propped his back up against the wall and leaned his head over a trash can, and threw up.

“Jerry, man! Take that shit outside!” Zero picked up his cell phone, and moments later, the two kids from outside the door were in the room, removing Jerry and the trashcan. They sprayed Febreeze on their way out as well.

Maybe I should hire them.

“I apologize for the party going on tonight. Usually, I don’t like to hold business meetings on party nights, but you seemed kind of in a crunch for time.”

“No problem, man, happy you could get it done on such short notice.” Danny was looking over Zero’s shoulder, watching the last of the files copy onto the last hard drive. It looked as though we had just enough space on the four we brought to empty the last two years’ worth of work from the servers.

Zero had run a program that allowed them to be copied without alerting the server software that someone was copying files. He said a four-year-old could have hacked into the AdSmart system.

This didn’t surprise me. The IT whiz kid had been laid off last year, and the person who took his place spent more time drinking coffee and flirting with the girl at the reception desk than working.

Danny exchanged some cash with Zero, and we put the hard drives back in Jay’s backpack.

“Ok, get me out of here.” I opened the door and gave a fist pump to the kid at the door. He actually cracked a smile and waved bye.

“Oh, come on Meg, don’t you at least want to hit up the 90’s party downstairs!” Danny was running after me.

“No. I think I need a good sober night, but thanks.” I had already had two beers that evening, but seeing this nonsense, I was done.

I walked over the same couple making out on the stairs. Thank goodness the sobbing girl had left. Wonder if Shauna had gotten it?

Part 31

Are you enjoying? Please consider supporting my writing with a PayPal donation! Click below:

Buy me a cup of Coffee!

Table of Contents:

• What the font?

• Font? Which font should I use?!?

• Week 10 Chat

What the font?

Imagine this scenario:

You have just met with a new client, a pizza store around the corner. Perfect! You can design their menu and hopefully get some pizza perks when the owner sees the fabulous work you have done. You have taken a few photos of their menu board with your cell phone:

You know the customer wants a few images of their pizza, salads and sandwiches as part of the design.

It’s up to you to put together a menu for this place. If the client likes your design, they will most likely ask you to build them a website as well. This tiny little job could potentially turn into something big!

You rush home, excited to get started. Turning on your computer, you fire up Adobe InDesign and print out those images of the menu items. You create a new 11x8.5 document with 3 a column layout and wonder …

Font? Which font should I use?!?

Picking a font is like picking a pizza topping. Some work really well together, others… not so much.

There are some quick rules regarding fonts you should be aware of:

1. Choose complementary fonts - Many fonts have distinct moods or personalities — serious, casual, playful, elegant. You want to make sure the moods of your font choices match the purpose of your design.

2. Establish a Visual Hierarch - Qualities such as size, boldness (also known as “weight”), and spacing (including leading, the space between lines, and kerning, the space between letters) all contribute to how the eye should navigate the page and what text should attract attention first.

3. Consider Context - Where your design will appear should help you determine what fonts will work for your project. The text should be easily readable at the size it is going to be displayed, and clarity is especially important for small type. (Think disclaimers in those pizza coupons!)

4. Mix Serifs and San Serifs – One serif, plus one san serif – OK! One serif plus another serif, think strawberry and pepperoni pizza.

5. Create Contrast – Mixing serif and san serif fonts helps to create contrast in your design.

6. Avoid pairing fonts that are too similar – Two display fonts, two thin fonts, two script fonts, you get the idea.

7. Use fonts from the same family – They were designed to work together in utter pizza harmony!

8. **Limit your number of fonts** - Nothing kills a good design quicker than two many fonts on the page. Just like holiday dinner, there can be too many cooks in the kitchen.^[1]

   [1] 10 Golden Rules You Should Live By When Combining Fonts: Tips From a Designer – Design School. (2015). Retrieved July 20, 2016, from https://designschool.canva.com/blog/combining-fonts-10-must-know-tips-from-a-designer/

🎨 Week 10 Chat:

Which font(s) would you pick for your Pizza Menu?

• Headline

• Body Text

• Phone Number

• Address

• Website

• 50% Off One Large Pizza (coupon)

Be sure to consider legibility, tone, readability, and context. There’s no absolute right or wrong—but your rationale should reflect solid design thinking.

Start a Substack

If you haven’t yet, start with…

Part 1 or

Every link in one place

OUTSOURCED

– Shannon McNamara –

Copyright Notice:
Outsourced © 2008 Shannon McNamara. All rights reserved. This work may not be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the author, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law.

If you have permission from the author to share the story online, you may also include:

"Shared online with permission from the author."

Are you enjoying? Please consider supporting my writing with a PayPal donation! Click below:

Buy me a cup of Coffee!

- Chapter 18 -

“So, who do you get to sit with today?” Danny was hanging over my cubicle, passing me the paperclips I had asked for fifteen minutes ago. Apparently, with the recent news of outsourcing, we were given a limited supply of supplies to make it through the following week.

“I think some guy named Jim? Not sure, I was only half paying attention when George said his name.”

“I’m sitting with, oh, um, no one, because apparently I’m not important enough to train anyone on what I do here.”

He sat back down and wheeled his chair into the middle of the room.

“Jay!”

Jay wheeled himself out from behind his partitioned wall.

“Jay, what do I do here?” Danny put his arms behind his head and leaned back in his chair, waiting for the answer. Everyone stopped typing and turned in their seats.

“Well, quite frankly, I don’t know. That might be why they aren’t keeping you.” Jay wheeled himself back to his computer. Where were all these people we were supposed to be training anyway?

I had just received a random email this morning.

Megan,

You will be sitting with Jim and discussing the day-to-day duties of the Graphics Department. Please be courteous and helpful.

Thank you.

So here I was, anxiously awaiting my training with Jim, the mystery man. I was also waiting for Jay to say more than a hello or goodbye to me since my date this weekend.

Just as this thought entered and exited my mind, the door to the graphics department opened, and George Plein came walking in with another man trailing behind him.

“Megan, hello, this is Jim, he’ll be here to sit with you this morning, um, well, after that, I guess you can go sit with either Danny or, um, what is your name again?” Mr. Plein, who I thought had retreated back to his happy little home in Connecticut, was currently standing a foot from my cubicle and pointing towards Jay’s desk. He had a very skinny, shorter man next to him who kept wiping his nose.

“I’m Jay. Whatever, he can sit with me this afternoon, honestly, don’t care.” Jay yelled over the wall. Not giving them the courtesy of a roll-out.

“Right, or you can sit with Jay.”

“I’ll sit with Danny.” The small man, whom I assumed was Jim, answered.

“Yay,” Danny mocked from over the wall.

“Yes, well, this is Meg, this is Jim. Do your thing, I’ll come get you at noon, and we can go to lunch.”

Obviously, he’d be buying him lunch. Obviously.

“So, hey, ok. Um, what do you know? Where do we need to get started?”

I pulled a chair from the empty cubicle next to me over to my desk, and he stared at it for a moment before sitting down. In the meantime, I sized him up.

He was very pale with large black-rimmed glasses. Not the cool retro kind either. He had a mop of hair on the top of his head and smelled kind of like mothballs. This was going to be a fun morning.

“Do you guys work in Adobe InDesign? Are you familiar with the newest version of the Adobe Creative Suite?” I started to open up programs, and he stared at me blankly. Oh dear God.

“I don’t design the ads.”

“Excuse me?”

“I just need to see what you have for paperwork. The people designing the ads are overseas. I’m going to grab a few examples of ads you have done. Then I would like you to grab the new ad copy and fax it over to my designers.”

“Ok?”

Did we even have a fax machine? What was this, 1999?

“Then you will critique their work.” Jim didn’t look up as he barked these orders at me. So basically, I wasn’t teaching him anything; I was taking what little work we did have to do today and sending it somewhere else. Great. So much for getting my last forty hours in.

I grabbed the stack of ads at my desk and began to rifle through them.

“Well, this one right here is a pizza ad for Pizzazz Pizzeria. The guy is really particular about how he likes…”

“This doesn’t matter. Just give me the ad copy, and my people will re-create it.” He grabbed the ad out of my hand and began to rifle through the copy from the sales rep. There were five pages of handwritten notes, a mock-up of the current ad that was running, and about a million instructions with arrows of where they wanted things moved. This guy had been a pain in my ass for four years. Go ahead. Please. Send it overseas. Then call me after the tenth revision.

“Well, what about the native files? Do you want me to send them the previous ad?”

“Yes.”

“Ok, and where pray tell might I be sending that to?” I was getting pretty annoyed at his attitude towards me. I understand he thinks what I do here is nothing, but he can at least give me the decency to be polite to my face while thinking it.

“Here’s the card for the graphics department, the email is on the bottom.”

GraphicsOutsource@goc.com

Go figure.

I opened the old ad, made a .sitx file instead of a zip file, and silently prayed they wouldn’t be able to open it when it got there. I then went on a fifteen-minute scavenger hunt for a fax machine.

“Next?”

Jim went over to our work wall and grabbed the remaining thirty-five ads out of the bins.

“Now do it to these.” He dropped them in my lap and sat back down in the chair I had rolled over, awkwardly close to me.

I grabbed them, found the files, compressed them, and emailed them. Why do these people not have an ftp site? After I was done, I handed the paperwork back to him.

“While these are chugging through my email, I guess you can fax them.”

He looked at me without taking the job jackets.

“The fax machine is over there.” I pointed to the desk next to Jay’s desk, where I had plugged it in and set it up.

Nothing.

I dropped the jobs on the floor.

“Well, I’m taking an early lunch, so I guess I’ll see you when you get back and sit with Danny.”

I left the email open, chugging slowly through each one I sent and grabbed my purse, and exited the department.

Chances were pretty good that I wouldn’t be fired for my stunt. I only had four days left at AdSmart, and the paperwork had been filled out and signed for my severance; no one wanted to pull that back and rewrite it to fire me.

The sun hit me in the face when I exited the building and temporarily blinded me as I tried to remember where I had parked.

Who the hell did he think he was anyway? He took the rest of the work we had to do for the week and sent it overseas. This better not rob us of our last paycheck.

I could not wait till their outsourcing plan backfired and we were in business for ourselves. At least we treated each other with dignity and respect. Granted, this whole scheme was a tad over the shady line, but I no longer cared about that either. I hope Danny can get us a meeting with his IT guy tonight.

I also hope we make this plan happen.

Part 30

Are you enjoying? Please consider supporting my writing with a PayPal donation! Click below:

Buy me a cup of Coffee!

Table of Contents:

• How are professionals critiqued?

• Text with Flex: How Typography Shapes the Page

• Principles of Effective Page Layout

• Balance

• Proximity

• Alignment

• Repetition

• Contrast

• White Space

• Week 9 Chat

How are professionals critiqued? 🧐

Let me take you on a journey in the world of Ad Creation. From 2003 – 2012, I worked for a company that created Direct Mail. (Spoiler Alert…or not really, but this job was the basis for Outsourced, my serial I publish every Tuesday.) Each Ad ran on 1/3 of a sheet of paper. The exact dimensions of the ad were 8”x3” and could be vertical or horizontal. Some ads were 2-sided, some were doubles (8x7.25), and menus were mostly full pages with a trifold. All work came over to the Art Department in a sleeve with copy that was either typed or (many times!) handwritten by the sales rep or the client. The Sales Rep was tasked with telling the designer what needed to go on the ad, whether the layout provided needed to be adhered to strictly, adhered to in a general sense (“kinda make it look like this, I guess???”). Or whether the designer was to have free rein over the design.

An artist would go to the “Wall”, the slots where all the work was kept; yes… it was a literal wall. Designers would grab an ad based on deadline. And no, they could not go and just look through the folders and pick which looked the easiest! After bringing this ad to their desk, they would need to decipher the layout, figure out the ad copy, find images or use images provided by the client, clean these images up in Photoshop, and then begin to typeset this ad in InDesign. All ads after they were typeset would go directly to the Proofreader in the department. He or she would look for spelling errors, make sure all copy appeared on the ad, make sure all images were present and high-resolution, and finally make sure the ad met the criteria for the design. Bad layouts were sent back at this point before even making it to the customer. We shall call this Critique #1.

After getting through proofreading, the ad makes its way to the desk of the Sales Rep. They look over the ad before presenting it to the client. They know the client best; the artist has never and probably never will meet this client. If the design is something that the Sales Rep feels the client will not be receptive to, changes are marked up on the ad and it is sent back to the artist. This is Critique #2.

If the ad makes it past the desk of the Sales Rep and the Proofreader without any changes, it still needs to go on to the client for final approval. There the client will stare, read, stare, read, stare, and read. They will send the ad to all of their friends. They will ask diners in their restaurant to give their opinion. They will wait until four minutes before the deadline. They will tell you that the blue is too blue. This is Critique #3.

If you have made it through all these critiques without any changes whatsoever, you can work for my old company at any time! (Just kidding, they are out of business because mailed coupons have been replaced with QR codes and social media.) Not even the greatest artists get their ads approved without a few tweaks from clients or reps—revisions are part of the process. It is the nature of our business. It is best to learn early to go with the flow and understand critiques are just part of the day-to-day of being a designer.

📐 Text with Flex: How Typography Shapes the Page

Now that you’ve had some practice giving and receiving constructive feedback, we’re shifting focus to the core principles of page layout. Strong layout skills are what take your designs from “okay” to “professional.” We’ll dive into alignment, hierarchy, proximity, balance, and white space—all essential tools for organizing information in a clear and compelling way.

Typography plays a huge role in this process. The typefaces you choose, how you size and space them, and how they interact with other elements on the page can make or break your layout. Good typography doesn’t just look nice—it guides the viewer’s eye, supports your message, and creates visual harmony across the design.

As you start to apply these concepts, you’ll get better at spotting what works (and what doesn’t) in both your own designs and others’.

Principles of Effective Page Layout

There are six principles every designer should keep in mind when considering the effectiveness of their page layout.

1. Balance

2. Proximity

3. Alignment

4. Repetition

5. Contrast

6. White Space

Balance

There are two forms of balance. Symmetrical and Asymmetrical. Balance also deals with the distribution of weight. This weight can come from graphics, copy, color, thickness of lines, or contrast.

Symmetrical balance means that the elements on the page are arranged in such a way that there exists a line or lines of reflection.

Asymmetrical balance doesn’t mean lack of symmetry. It is an arrangement of unlike objects of equal weight on each side of the page.

Proximity

Proximity simply means the grouping of related items on a page by bringing them physically close to each other. For information to be perceived as cohesive, it should be organized into groups of related elements.

Alignment

The Principle of Alignment states that nothing should be placed on a page arbitrarily; everything should have a visual connection to something else on the page. When elements are aligned, they create a stronger, visually cohesive unit.

Repetition

Some aspect of the design should be repeated throughout the entire page. Repetition can exist in many forms, from design elements to font, bullet list, colour, lines or shapes, or even a spatial relationship. Repetition helps to organize the information and unify parts of the design.

Contrast

Contrast is a powerful tool to attract attention and add visual interest to your page. If two items on the page are not exactly the same, then make them different – REALLY different!

White Space

White space, or negative space, is the absence of text and graphics. It doesn’t have to be white; it is whatever color the background of your page is. White space provides visual breathing room for the eye.^[1]

[1] Principles of Effective Page Layout. (2016). Retrieved July 20, 2016, from https://pathwaystrainingandelearning.wordpress.com/2016/05/05/principles-of-effective-page-layout/

🎨 Week 9 Chat:

📝 What are your thoughts on these letterform fonts? Do you have a favorite? Is there one that you don’t feel is working? Why?

Be sure to consider legibility, tone, readability, and context. There’s no absolute right or wrong—but your rationale should reflect solid design thinking.

Start a Substack

If you haven’t yet, start with…

Part 1 or

Every link in one place

OUTSOURCED

– Shannon McNamara –

Copyright Notice:
Outsourced © 2008 Shannon McNamara. All rights reserved. This work may not be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the author, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law.

If you have permission from the author to share the story online, you may also include:

"Shared online with permission from the author."

Are you enjoying? Please consider supporting my writing with a PayPal donation! Click below:

Buy me a cup of Coffee!

- CHAPTER SEVENTEEN –

“I wasn’t lying when I told you I could marinate a steak.” I laughed at Andrew in the light of the mosquito candle. The anxiety I had felt coming into the “date” had slowly subsided halfway through our dinner, and I was actually enjoying myself.

“Well, I refuse to let you take all the credit, you know, I mean I did throw it on the grill and not burn it.” He sipped his wine and smirked back at me.

“Ha! That was only because I insisted on you taking it off when you did, I dunno, I might have to take the blue ribbon on this dinner.” I threw my napkin at him over the table, and he caught it and stood up.

“Another glass of wine?”

I looked down at my almost empty glass. I was being a good girl tonight. I had so far only had one glass. Seeing as I had consumed half a cow and technically only had to drive down the street, I could allow myself one more.

“Sure, but that’s it.”

I looked away and out over the beach. The house was all that stood between the road and the ocean. The views from his back porch were worth far more than the millions he had probably paid for this house. I was sitting there staring off into the black abyss of the sea, which was briefly lit up with the lightning overhead, when I heard my cell phone ring in my purse. I glanced into the house and saw that Andrew wasn’t in sight.

Must be Melissa checking up on me. I laughed to myself and grabbed the phone out of my purse.

BRIAN.

His name burned across the display on my screen. I was in such shock, I sat there staring at it as the ringing got louder. What the…?

“Hello,” I whispered into the phone. It probably wasn’t the best first date etiquette to answer a call from your ex. “What in God’s name are you doing calling me?”

“What?” I heard him exclaim at the other end of the line. He sounded very, very drunk.

“I can’t call the girl I lived with for ten years? I can’t just pick up the phone and say hello? What’s up with that?” Brian slurred into the phone. There was a racket in the background, and what sounded like a jukebox playing Foreigner.

“You have got to be kidding me right now. You sound absolutely shit faced. Go call your freaking fiancé.” I heard my voice begin to rise, and I got up out of my chair to walk down the porch steps towards the beach. If we were going to have this call right now, of all times, I didn’t want to do it on Andrew’s back porch.

“I don’t want to call her. Obviously, if I wanted to call her, I’d call her Meg. I mean, I have her number.” He garbled at me.

“I’m well aware you have her phone number, Brian. What do you want?”

“What are you on a date or something?” He laughed on his end. I contemplated hanging up.

“Yes, as a matter of fact, I am on a date.” I retorted with amazing self-satisfaction.

There was a long pause. Did he hang up?

“Hello?” I asked after what seemed like a minute.

“No, um, well, I’m still here. Who are you out with?”

“That’s none of your business.”

“Is it Andrew Tullson?” His tone became more curt and pointed as he asked the question.

“Why, what does it matter who I’m on a date with? You’re an engaged man, remember? So when’s the wedding?” The sarcasm rolled off my tongue with such ease.

“Well, if it is him, Meg, watch out.” He responded with a hint of sadness in his voice. Was he sad that I was gone? Did he miss me? Or was he just sad I wasn’t home, pining over him? I decided it was probably the latter.

“Listen, I can take care of myself, asshole. I think the last person I should be taking relationship advice from is you.”

I hung up the phone and put it on mute. If he was going to call back, he could go straight to voicemail. I was in no position to try and figure that mess out right now.

I contemplated throwing my cell phone into the ocean for effect, but decided against it, seeing as I probably wouldn’t have the money to buy a new one come next week. I turned to go back up the deck and saw Andrew walking across the sand with two glasses in his hand. I slyly put my cell phone in my back pocket.

“Nice light show tonight, huh?” He handed me the glass and I took a sip.

“Yes, I was down here watching the lightning. Glad you could join me.” I put my thoughts into my back pocket as well.

An hour and another glass of wine later, I made a mental note that I was done drinking. I had to still drive down the street, plus Andrew was starting to look a little too cute for my own good. This was starting to wear on my decision not to kiss him.

“So let me get this right? You were that kid in high school who hung out in the art room and wore black, right? I mean, it’s not too ridiculous to picture, I suppose. You're sitting there scribbling drawings laced with song lyrics and all.” I started to laugh and worried that wine would come out of my nose. I put my hand over my mouth and began to shake my head wildly from side to side.

“Ah, you jocks have us all pictured the same. We are always the weird ones, well, you have me pegged wrong, Mister. Sure, I was an art kid, but I didn’t wear black every day, nor did I have greasy hair. Sorry to disappoint you. I did lots of things, just wasn’t terribly great at any one thing. I was good at math, I drew, and I ran track. I was a well-rounded nerd, you could say.” I giggled as I thought back to the horrors of high school, which my life now was only a slightly more grown-up version of.

He chuckled a few more times and looked me deep in the eyes.

“Well, there’s more to you, Ms. O’Rourke, than I first realized.”

I gulped.

He leaned in closer, and my heart stopped cold. I realized I was either going to kiss him or run off into the night. While I tried to size it up, a big fat rain drop hit me square in the eyes.

“What the?”

Then the entire sky opened up.

“Oh shit!” I jumped up and grabbed Andrew’s hand.

“Shit, shit, shit.” I looked around in a panic and tried to decide my next mode of action.

“Ok, yes, this may put a damper on the night’s outdoor activities, but a little bit of rain never killed anyone,” Andrew yelled in my direction as I ran wildly towards the front of the house where my Jeep was. Sitting there. With the top down. In the rain.

“Yeah, however, it’ll take a week for my seats to dry out if I leave my top down. Ever put a top up on a Wrangler?” I yelled as I hurried along.

“No.”

“Well, tonight, my fine friend, you can have a crash course.”

“You know, they make cars with tops that have a button that you hit, and voila! The roof goes up on its own.”

I shot him a sarcastic grin.

“Har, Har. And what fun would that be? Here, hand me the window.”

“Hold right here.” I pointed to the part of the window near the door.

I grabbed the zipper and expertly glided it around to finish the sides. I had thrown the top up quickly and let Andrew sit on the passenger seat while I threw the back window up. I didn’t have the doors on, but at least the rain was coming straight down. After four minutes, we were done, a world record time.

“So are you going to take me for a ride in this beast or what?” He grinned at me in the dark, and my heart raced a little bit.

“Well, you better put your seatbelt on, and I hope you don’t mind getting a bit dirty.”

I cranked the engine over and took off down the dirt driveway, purposely hitting a big puddle on his side.

Part 29

Are you enjoying? Please consider supporting my writing with a PayPal donation! Click below:

Buy me a cup of Coffee!

Table of Contents:

• Let’s Talk About Constructive Feedback

• Does everything need a critique?

• Week 8 Chat

Let’s Talk About Constructive Feedback 🗣️✨

In the design world—and really, in any creative field—learning how to give and receive constructive feedback is essential for growth. Whether you're collaborating with peers, presenting to a client, or refining your own work, the ability to engage in thoughtful, respectful critique can elevate your designs and sharpen your skills.

We'll explore why constructive feedback matters, how to deliver it with clarity and kindness, and how to receive it with an open mind and a focus on improvement.

Constructive feedback is information-specific, issue-focused, and based on observations. It comes in two varieties: Praise and criticism are both personal judgments about a performance effort or outcome, with praise being a favorable judgment and criticism, an unfavorable judgment.[1]

One way to give great feedback is to use the Sandwich Method:

1. You start off by focusing on the strengths—what you like about the item in question.

2. Then, you provide the criticism—things you didn’t like; the areas of improvement.

3. Lastly, you round off the feedback with (a) a reiteration of the positive comments you gave at the beginning and (b) the positive results that can be expected if the criticism is acted upon.[2]

Remember, if you are providing criticism you should also provide an idea for improvement. Saying, “I don’t know, I just don’t like it…” is not constructive and does not offer a suggestion to fix the issues that may be plaguing the piece.

Does everything need a critique? Can’t something just be perfect?

In theory, yes, everything should be critiqued. You are doing a disservice to your fellow students or colleagues if you mark everything as perfect. Design is rarely perfect. Why? Because we each have our own take on design and how we would tackle it. This leads us open to critique. Remember criticism is a form of communication and criticism makes your work stronger.

[1] Brounstein, B. M. (n.d.). Giving Constructive Feedback - dummies. Retrieved October 13, 2016, from http://www.dummies.com/business/human-resources/employee-relations/giving-constructive-feedback/

[2] @. (n.d.). How to Give Constructive Criticism: 6 Helpful Tips. Retrieved October 13, 2016, from http://personalexcellence.co/blog/constructive-criticism/

🎨 Week 8 Chat:

📝 Ad Critique Prompt (Using the Sandwich Method)

This week, you’ll be practicing how to give constructive feedback by critiquing an advertisement. Please follow the Sandwich Method to make your feedback clear, supportive, and useful.

When you critique an ad, answer these questions in your response:

1️⃣ What works?

• What do you like about this ad?

• What catches your attention in a good way?

• Be specific! Talk about things like images, colors, message, audience appeal, or layout.

2️⃣ What doesn’t work?

• What do you think could be improved?

• Why do you think this part isn’t working well?

• Be clear and kind—focus on the ad, not the person.

3️⃣ How would you fix it?

• Offer at least one idea to improve what you didn’t like.

• Explain how your suggestion could make the ad better.

• Wrap up with encouragement: How will these changes make the ad even stronger?

Remember:
✅ Be specific and helpful—“I don’t like it” is not enough.
✅ Praise what works and give a solution for what doesn’t.
✅ Be honest—don’t mark everything as perfect. Real feedback helps everyone grow!

Example:

What works: I love the bright colors and bold headline—it really grabs my eye.
What doesn’t work: The text at the bottom is too small to read easily.
How to fix it: Try making that text bigger or using a clearer font. That way, your message will reach more people, and the ad will look even more professional!

Now, pick an ad and come to the chat to try your Sandwich Critique! 🥪✨

Be sure to consider legibility, tone, readability, and context. There’s no absolute right or wrong—but your rationale should reflect solid design thinking.

Start a Substack

If you haven’t yet, start with…

Part 1 or

Every link in one place

OUTSOURCED

– Shannon McNamara –

Copyright Notice:
Outsourced © 2008 Shannon McNamara. All rights reserved. This work may not be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the author, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law.

If you have permission from the author to share the story online, you may also include:

"Shared online with permission from the author."

Are you enjoying? Please consider supporting my writing with a PayPal donation! Click below:

Buy me a cup of Coffee!

— CHAPTER SIXTEEN —

I toweled off after my shower and turned the overhead fan on to try and get rid of the steam fogging up the bathroom mirror. I could feel the mugginess of the outdoors creeping in through the cracks in the windows and under the doors. Showering had almost made me feel stickier and sweatier. I turned the shower back on, freezing cold, and jumped back in, letting the frigid water soak me from head to toe. When I got out again this time, I could see my reflection in the mirror.

“Ah, much better.”

I put on some baby powder to try and ward off the stickiness that was sure to overtake my body later tonight. I tended to sweat a little in nervous and uncomfortable situations. Tonight was shaping up to be the perfect storm for a deodorant commercial.

After I was white as a ghost, I spritzed myself with some body spray and attempted to comb out my long brown hair. It kept sticking to my back. Even with the cold shower I had just taken, the bathroom was full of steam. I gave up and sneaked a peek down the hallway through a crack in the bathroom door. No one was in sight. I quickly threw on just my underwear and bra and opened the door to let the hot air out, and regulate my body temperature a bit. I dragged the comb back and forth, raking out the snarls in my hair and sprayed some leave-in conditioner in the hopes that that would keep it tame for the remainder of the evening.

Seeing as Andrew had said this was going to be casual, I had put out a pair of my favorite jeans, the kind that made me look about ten pounds skinnier than I actually am. The tank top I chose was the kind that made my boobs look about ten times bigger than they actually were. I gave another quick look out the door and jetted from the bathroom to the bedroom before Jay could come around the corner and see me in my underwear.

I got into my room, and it was stifling hot in there. Neesy had abandoned the upstairs to go lie down on Jay’s bed downstairs, where there was an air conditioning unit propped in his bedroom window. I kept meaning to go out and get another fan, seeing as having my own personal air conditioner was currently out of my budget.

I pulled on my jeans, barely. The humidity had made my legs about four times their normal size, and the material kept scraping at my skin and getting stuck. I finally had to lie on the bed and pull and pull till they were on. I went and stood in front of the fan, hoping that the cool breeze would make the denim disconnect itself from my skin and fall into place on my legs. I leaned over on the bed and grabbed my tank top, and threw that on. It was sticking to my stomach, and my boobs were looking really weird in it.

“Good lord!” Hopefully, it would rain soon, and the mugginess would go away. The sky was threatening, but all there was at the moment was a light drizzle coming down. No dice.

I held my tank top up a bit and stood in front of the fan again, letting the air go up my shirt. My hair was refusing to dry and still sticking to the back of my neck and the sides of my face. I knew makeup was useless tonight, so I had given up on that. It would be running down my face before I even made it out of the house. I grabbed a hair tie and, against my better judgment, just threw the whole big mess of hair up into a knot. I pulled a few pieces out strategically. I had definitely mastered the messy bun.

The clock said seven o’clock, and I realized I was a bit early. I had to be there for eight, but he was only four minutes down the road, and everything was done. I gave myself a quick whiff under my arms and put on some more deodorant for good measure.

I spied my cell phone on the bureau and grabbed it without thinking, flipping it open and hitting the first number in my recent calls list. Melissa picked up on the second ring.

“What am I doing?”

“I don’t know, I’m not there, what are you doing?” There was a pause as she allowed me time to reply.

“Well, I’m all dressed and I have an hour till my so-called date, and I’m sitting here wondering if I should just crawl into bed with the rest of my book and call it a night.”

“I don’t think that is an acceptable plan.”

“Well, come on, when’s the last time I went on a date? I don’t even remember how to date. How do you date?”

She was quiet for a minute, not because she was annoyed with me, but she was probably formulating an answer to my question.

“Ok, well, things are a tad different these days, Meg. People have sex on the first date. I don’t want to alarm you, but these things are happening all the time, and it’s because girls and boys just aren’t like they used to be.”

I rolled my eyes at the phone.

“Well, I don’t care what he expects; he’s not getting it on the first date. I have a strict rule…” I began, but she didn’t allow me to finish.

“Yeah, I know your rules. So be careful and don’t kiss him. Unless it’s a peck on the cheek and a goodbye hug. If he thinks he has some sort of right to get any, pepper spray him and run out the door.”

Melissa and I weren’t exactly holding out for a marriage proposal on the first date; however, we had standards. You had to meet the family a few times, meet the friends, establish a line of trust, only then would we discuss the whole sex thing.

“Ok, true, but at the same time, I think he is older. A more respectable, gentlemanly generation. If one ever existed, that is. But what if he thinks, because I’m younger, I’m just fair game? Do I explain my selective morals to him or just knee him in the balls?”

She laughed at the other end of the line.

“If you knee Andrew Tullson in the balls, you will have to call a paramedic to come over and resuscitate me from dying of laughter.”

“You are absolutely no help this evening. I don’t know, this is a whole lot to think about. I’m too old to just be out there looking for a good time. I really thought I’d be settled down right now, you know?” I could hear my voice begin to falter.

Melissa sighed.

“I know, sweetie, but remember, the first guy out of the gate isn’t always the winner?”

I promised to call her after my date, and hung up.

The first guy out of the gate isn’t always the winner.

She was right; I had to look at this from a logical standpoint. I’d go have fun. If it didn’t feel right, it didn’t feel right; there was no reason to stick around and waste my time. I wasn’t putting myself out there with a determination to find a husband after one date. I was just so mad that I wasted my twenties on the wrong asshole.

I grabbed my purse and headed downstairs. I still had a good twenty minutes until it was time to leave. Jay was sitting on the couch in the living room watching the Red Sox game with a beer and a bag of chips. I sat down next to him and dug my hand in the bag.

“So big date tonight?” He shoved a chip in his mouth, never taking his eyes off the TV.

“Well, a little dinner is all. I wouldn’t exactly call that a date. Oh shit! Go! Go! Go!” I yelled mid-sentence at the TV.

“Ha! Home run. See Meg, why go out and miss all this?” He laughed and waved his hands over his little spread. I chuckled and grabbed his beer from him and took a swig.

He smacked me jokingly on the arm. I handed it back to him.

I had to admit, it seemed like a far less stressful option. There was a big boom of thunder outside.

“Shit.” I had the top down on the Jeep. I hadn’t thought of that when I was wishing for rain earlier.

“How long do you think it will hold out?”

He looked out the sliding doors to the back porch and wrinkled his nose. “I think you should be ok, it looks like heat lightning and thunder. The humidity is at about four thousand percent right now. If it hasn’t rained yet, I think we are all doomed to suffer through the rest of the night.”

He had a point. I might just throw the top up anyway, the doors and the windows would be too much of a pain in the butt to put on before I had to leave. At least I’d have some cover over my head, though.

I was still nervous and dreading leaving. I started to fidget and play with the hem of my jeans.

“Meg, you ok?” Jay looked a little concerned. He leaned over and grabbed the remote to turn the sound down on the game.

“I don’t know. I mean, I just feel so out of the dating loop.” I frowned and thought about that one for a minute.

“What is so difficult about dinner? Why call it a date?” He turned his whole body to face me on the couch.

“Well, I don’t know. Is dinner just dinner, or is it a date? So let’s just, for argument’s sake, say that it is a date. So here I am going on this date, and I have no freaking idea what this guy is expecting, but I can assure you, it’s not going to happen. I mean, I don’t even know if I’m ready to date yet! Everything is just happening so quickly. I can’t even begin to wrap my head around it.” I paused and took a deep breath. Jay took that as his opportunity to reason with me.

“Well, if you aren’t ready to date, then this is easy, just don’t date.”

“Yeah, easy for you to say, when was your last meaningful relationship?”

He scratched his head and took a sip of his beer.

“I figure there is no point to relationships. I know I’m just going to screw it all up, so why bother putting all that effort into something with no return?”

“Why would you be worried about messing it up? I mean, how do you know you will if you never try?”

He was quiet for a minute, looking down at the ground where Boo was lying at his feet.

“I don’t know, I mean, look at you. Would you honestly ever date me? You know my history and you’ve seen how I behave.”

This is the first time in all our years of knowing each other, the idea of us being a couple has ever been put on the table. I checked my watch. Shit, ten minutes until I had to leave.

“I don’t know, I mean, you have your shit together, that’s a plus. You have a house, that’s a plus. You own your own vehicle, that’s a plus. You have a pretty badass dog, another plus.” I laughed nervously at my laundry list I had just given. He laughed too, just as nervously. I didn’t know what to do at that moment. Part of me wanted to call Andrew and tell him, never mind. The other part of me felt guilty again and looked down at my phone.

“Well, I guess you'd better be on your way. Wouldn’t want you to show up to this big date late.” He winked and leaned back over to put the volume back up on the television. I guess my subtle gesture ended this conversation.

I got up off the couch and grabbed my purse. I walked around behind the back of the couch and playfully rubbed his head when I walked by. He didn’t look up. I let out a sigh, grabbed the food out of the fridge, and left, closing the front door softly behind me. I stood there for a minute, looking over my shoulder into the window of the living room. He didn’t look away from the television.

“Just look up once and I won’t go,” I whispered at the closed window. He didn’t, and I walked away.

Part 28

Are you enjoying? Please consider supporting my writing with a PayPal donation! Click below:

Buy me a cup of Coffee!

Adolf Hitler was a German dictator whose tyrannical rule from 1933 to 1945 led to one of history’s darkest chapters. Rising to power as the leader of the Nazi Party, he established a totalitarian regime built on propaganda, fear, and violent oppression. Hitler’s ambitions for racial purity and territorial expansion resulted in the devastation of World War II and the Holocaust, where over six million Jews and millions of others were systematically murdered. His reign of terror left lasting scars on the world and stands as a grim reminder of the consequences of unchecked hatred and absolute power.

If you find value in the Mini Lessons I create and would like to support my work, I’d sincerely appreciate a donation to my PayPal account! Every bit helps me keep these resources coming.

Please Support My Work

Table of Contents:

• The Munich Beer Hall Melee

• Maurice Bavaud’s Plot

• Georg Elser’s Beer Hall Bomb

• Henning von Tresckow’s Brandy Bomb

• Rudolf von Gertsdorff’s Suicide Mission

• The July Plot

• Practice Work

1921: The Munich Beer Hall Melee

The first attempt on Hitler’s life occurred nearly 20 years before the start of World War II.

In November 1921, Hitler delivered a speech at Munich’s famous Hofbräuhaus Beer Hall, where members of the newly formed Nazi Party were joined by social democrats, communists, and other political opponents. Following Hitler’s fiery address, a violent brawl erupted, with fists, beer steins, and chairs flying through the air. Amid the chaos, a group of unidentified assailants pulled out pistols and fired several shots at the speaker's podium. Despite the gunfire, Hitler was unharmed and continued his speech for another 20 minutes until the police arrived.

1938: Maurice Bavaud’s Plot

In 1938, Maurice Bavaud, a Swiss theology student, attempted to assassinate Adolf Hitler in a plot that became known as the Maurice Bavaud assassination attempt. Bavaud, who opposed Hitler's rise to power and the Nazi regime, was inspired by his anti-Nazi beliefs and the treatment of Jews in Germany. He devised a plan to kill Hitler during a visit to the Berghof, Hitler's residence in Bavaria.

Bavaud managed to get close to Hitler by obtaining a ticket for a rally in Munich. His plan was to shoot Hitler while he was in a car, but Bavaud failed to carry out the assassination due to multiple factors, including bad timing and being unable to secure a clear shot. In the chaos surrounding the rally, he was unable to act.

Bavaud's plot was uncovered, and he was arrested in 1938. He was put on trial, found guilty of treason, and executed by the Nazis in 1941. His assassination attempt, though unsuccessful, is often remembered as one of the many plots against Hitler during his rule.

1939: Georg Elser’s Beer Hall Bomb

Georg Elser was a German carpenter and communist who strongly opposed Nazism. He spent several months building a bomb with a 144-hour timer. Elser moved to Munich and began sneaking into the Bürgerbräukeller, where Hitler was scheduled to speak, each night to hollow out a cavity in a stone pillar behind the speaker’s platform.

After weeks of secretive work, Elser successfully installed his bomb and set it to explode on November 8, 1939, at 9:20 p.m., roughly midway through Hitler’s speech. Due to World War II and Hitler’s change in schedule, the speech started earlier at 8 p.m., and Hitler finished by 9:07 p.m. and left the building by 9:12 p.m.

Elser’s bomb exploded 8 minutes later, after Hitler had already departed. Elser was captured, sent to a concentration camp, and executed by the SS.

1943: Henning von Tresckow’s Brandy Bomb

On March 13, 1943, Hitler visited the Smolensk post of Henning von Tresckow, a disillusioned German military officer, for a brief visit. During the visit, Tresckow approached a member of Hitler's staff and asked him to deliver a parcel containing two bottles of brandy to a friend in Berlin. After the plane had landed safely in Berlin, Tresckow contacted the staff officer and informed him that there had been a mistake with the package. Upon inspection, it was discovered that a defective fuse had been the only thing preventing the bomb from detonating and blowing Hitler's plane out of the sky.

1943: Rudolf von Gertsdorff’s Suicide Mission

Officer Rudolf von Gertsdorff volunteered to be the triggerman for a bomb attack but realized he would need to wear the bomb himself. On March 21, he stayed close to Hitler while guiding him through an exhibit of captured Soviet flags and weaponry in Berlin. Despite Gertsdorff’s efforts to prolong the tour, Hitler quickly slipped out through a side door after just a few minutes. In a panic, Gertsdorff rushed to the bathroom, where he defused the explosives with only seconds to spare.

1944: The July Plot

Shortly after the D-Day invasions in the summer of 1944, a group of disillusioned German officers launched a plot to assassinate Hitler at his "Wolf’s Lair" command post in Prussia. The plan was to kill Hitler with a hidden bomb and then use the German Reserve Army to overthrow the Nazi high command. If successful, the rebels would immediately seek a negotiated peace with the Allies. Claus von Stauffenberg, the leader of the plot, arrived carrying a briefcase filled with plastic explosives connected to an acid fuse. He placed the case as close to Hitler as possible and then left the room under the pretense of making a phone call. The bomb detonated minutes later, blowing apart a wooden table and reducing much of the conference room to charred rubble. Four men were killed, but Hitler survived with non-life-threatening injuries—an officer had moved Stauffenberg’s briefcase behind a thick table leg just seconds before the blast. Stauffenberg and the other conspirators were later captured and executed, along with hundreds of other dissidents.

Practice Work

Answer each question below:

1. How many attempts were made on Hitler’s life?

2. Which attempt do you think was the closest? Why?

   You can post your answers in the chat and get feedback!

If you find value in the Mini Lessons I create and would like to support my work, I’d sincerely appreciate a donation to my PayPal account! Every bit helps me keep these resources coming.

Mini Lesson Coffee Fund!

Table of Contents:

• Deepening Your Typeface Skills

• Choosing the Right Font: Style Meets Function

• Fonts = Outfits for Letters

• Web vs. Print: Serif or Sans?

• The Bottom Line

• Week 7 Chat

🔡 Deepening Your Typeface Skills

Now that you’ve got a solid grasp on basic typography terms, letterform anatomy, and the personalities of key type families, it’s time to go a little deeper. This week, you’ll continue exploring typefaces and start thinking critically about choosing the right font for the right purpose.

Your assessment will be a midterm quiz—an opportunity to refresh and reinforce everything you’ve learned before we dive into the more advanced phases of typography.

🔤 Choosing the Right Font: Style Meets Function

Selecting a font might seem like one of the most basic decisions a designer makes—but it’s also one of the most important. The right typeface not only affects the visual appeal of your project, but also impacts its readability, tone, and overall success. Font choices shouldn't be based on personal taste alone. Instead, they need to serve the purpose of the design and meet specific criteria.

Fonts = Outfits for Letters

Think of fonts like clothing for your message. Just like you wouldn’t wear a swimsuit to a job interview (no matter how stylish it is), you wouldn’t use an ornate display font for a serious report. Some fonts, like Rosewood or Edwardian Script, are full of personality and only fit very specific uses. Others, like Helvetica or Baskerville, are versatile and can adapt to many situations—kind of like a great pair of jeans and a white shirt.

Being able to confidently match fonts with design goals is a key skill that shows you're ready to work professionally. It takes time, research, and experimentation.

Take advantage of font libraries like Adobe Fonts to try out different options and test how your message looks in various styles. Make sure your font not only looks good but communicates clearly.

"When choosing a typeface, graphic designers consider the history of typefaces, their current connotations, as well as their formal qualities. The goal is to find an appropriate match between a style of letters and the specific social situation and body of content that define the project at hand."
— Ellen Lupton, 2010

🖥️ Web vs. Print: Serif or Sans?

Traditionally, serif fonts were seen as more readable for large blocks of printed text. The tiny serifs help guide the eye from one letter to the next, and their unique letterforms support quick recognition.

But the rise of digital design changed the rules. On screens—especially smaller or lower-resolution ones—sans serif fonts usually perform better. Their clean lines scale well, and thin strokes don’t disappear like they sometimes do in serif typefaces.

David Kadavy, author of Design for Hackers, notes that web fonts like Arial, Verdana, Georgia, and Times New Roman became popular not just because they were widely available—but because they were designed with screen limitations in mind.

Even tech giants like Google have adapted. Their recent logo redesign dropped the old serif style because it didn’t scale well on digital devices. As writer Alexandra Walker put it:

"The spindly letterforms start to disappear, and when it’s really tiny, it’s essentially useless. The G almost turns into a C. The l looks like Coogie!"

💡 The Bottom Line

When choosing a font, always consider where and how it will be used. Web or print? Small screen or poster-size? Serif or sans serif? The right font depends on your message, medium, and audience—not just your aesthetic preferences.

Being a designer means making thoughtful choices with purpose. And that starts with asking not just what looks good, but what works best.

🎨 Week 7 Chat:

Time to Weigh the Options! 🧐

Now that you've explored what makes a font suitable—whether for print or web—it's time to apply your knowledge. For each scenario below, compare Designer A and Designer B’s font choices. Evaluate how well each font fits the function, audience, and context of the project.

While both selections might be technically viable, your task is to determine which designer made the stronger choice—and explain why, using what you’ve learned.

Scenario 1: Headline for a News Website

• Designer A: Mrs Eaves All Caps

• Designer B: Frutiger Bold Compressed

Scenario 2: The word “Courage” as a tattoo design

• Designer A: Amador

• Designer B: Monotype Corsiva

Scenario 3: Baby Shower Invitation

• Designer A: Shelby

• Designer B: Optima

Scenario 4: Body Copy for a Digital Romance Novel

• Designer A: Avenir Book

• Designer B: Bookmania Light

Be sure to consider legibility, tone, readability, and context. There’s no absolute right or wrong—but your rationale should reflect solid design thinking.

Start a Substack

If you haven’t yet, start with…

Part 1 or

Every link in one place

OUTSOURCED

– Shannon McNamara –

Copyright Notice:
Outsourced © 2008 Shannon McNamara. All rights reserved. This work may not be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the author, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law.

If you have permission from the author to share the story online, you may also include:

"Shared online with permission from the author."

Are you enjoying? Please consider supporting my writing with a PayPal donation! Click below:

Buy me a cup of Coffee!

I took a big breath before my head crashed under the water. I fought a bit and came back up a few seconds later to find Jay swimming a few feet away and laughing. I splashed him in the face and screamed.

“What are you doing? You could have drowned me!” I yelled and splashed him again. I was mad, but at the same time, happy to see that he wasn’t sulking in the house and had decided to come join us.

“You were just so peaceful floating right there; I had to do something about it. Oh yeah, and thanks for the sandwich. Yummy.” He yelled back to me, laughing, and began to swim towards the beach. I saw Neesy and Boo lying on a big blanket on the beach. He had the whole crew with him. I applauded his effort. I began to swim back to the shore at that point as well. I could see Neesy had noticed Melissa and was beginning to make her way over to her blanket. She was crawling slowly, hoping that no one would notice she was doing it.

The waves were helping to bring me into the shoreline quickly. I put my arms out and body surfed the rest of the way in, catching myself with my palms on the shore before I got scraped across the sand. Jay was toweling himself off and yelling at Neesy to leave Melissa alone. At that point, she heard the commotion and sat up with a start.

I came up the beach and waved to her. She waved back and reached over to the cooler and grabbed water, chugging it down in a few seconds. She grabbed another one and stood up, swaying a bit. She held onto Boo and used him as a prop to help herself up. I laughed hard and ran the rest of the way to the blanket.

“Thanks, Mr. Boo,” he looked up at her as though he understood completely; then he ran toward the shoreline, jumping and barking at the crashing waves.

“Welcome to the land of the living. Would you like to have a sandwich now?” I grabbed one for myself and tossed one to her. She unwrapped it and took a bite. I devoured one half of mine and looked over at Jay. He brought his blanket closer to ours.

“That was nice of you, you didn’t have to do that, you know.” He said, talking about his lunch still. He sheepishly looked down at his feet. I grabbed a lemonade and threw it at him. He caught it and shaded his eyes from the sun to look at me.

“No problem. Like I said, I got tons of food, so help yourself. Figured while I was making ours, it would be no trouble at all to make you one too, glad you liked it.” God, I was rambling. I shoved more sandwich into my mouth to shut myself up. In my purse, my cell phone started ringing. With Jay and Melissa sitting next to me, I had no idea who could be calling me. The display read MOM in big letters. Oh crap. I was supposed to be cooking them dinner tonight, wasn’t I? I had totally forgotten in the whirlwind of the past two days.

“Hello, Mother,” I said in a light and fun voice. I hoped she wouldn’t suspect that anything was wrong. “You are going to kill me, but I can’t cook dinner tonight.” Always best to just spill the beans immediately with her.

“Well, that’s actually why I was calling Meg, I wanted to know if we could reschedule till maybe Wednesday night? Would that work for you guys? Your father had to go into the office today, and I have been running around trying to get the laundry and the shopping done, and quite frankly, I’m just beat.” Phew, I was off the hook. I had honestly felt bad that I had forgotten. I had just seen them last week, but it felt like ages ago.

“Yeah, Mom, that’s cool. Wednesday should be just fine. I’ll see if Danny and Nick want to come over too. We can cook out on.” I chatted with her for a few more minutes, telling her about the beach and pretty much leaving out the details of my evening, and the rest of my weekend, for that matter. Melissa finished her sandwich while I was on the phone and made her way down to the ocean to splash some water on her tired face. Jay was back on his blanket too, soaking in some sun, his bronze skin gleaming. Neesy and Boo were both down at the water with Melissa jumping in the waves, chasing each other.

I hung up the phone, and Jay turned his gaze to me. “Dinner on Wednesday, I take it. Should I be home, or do you want me to take off for the night?” He held his palm over his eyes to block the sun. I gave him a look.

“Don’t think you are getting off that easily. You will have dinner, and you will love what I cook. Not to mention two things: number one, I would never, ever ask you to leave your own house. And, number two, this is definitely for them to see you, not me. If you aren’t there, they will just keep coming back; we might as well nip this one right now.” He smiled and said ‘ok’.

“So, what is for dinner, Chef O’Rourke?” I stopped and thought about it for a moment. Hopefully, the weather would cooperate, and we could eat out on the deck.

“Well, I figured we could do steaks and baked potatoes on the grill, a salad, and some corn. Yum.” Even though I had just inhaled a ham sandwich, my mouth watered a bit at the mention of steak.

We both lay down on our respective towels, and Melissa returned to hers. I tried my best to pick up my book and concentrate on what was going on, but after rereading the same paragraph three times, I put it down and just enjoyed the sunshine. The three of us stayed like that for what seemed like two hours. Every few minutes, I’d sit up and check on the dogs. They were running around, but there wasn’t anywhere for them to run off to. Finally, tired out, they returned to the big blanket Jay had brought with him and lay down on it. They were covered in sand and seawater, and they seemed happier than I had seen them in days. Neesy was loving this new little life she had found herself in. I tried to sit back and do the same.

The clouds started rolling in from the east, and I could see the sky getting darker farther out on the ocean. Melissa and Jay noticed it at the same time.

“Looks like we probably have about an hour left of this before the storm hits,” Jay said, looking out at the sky. It was funny hearing his voice. I realized we had been sitting here in silence for about an hour, if not more. He got up off his blanket and went to jump back in the water. Boo followed him, but Neesy just lifted her head and put it back down. She had worn herself out this afternoon.

Melissa waited until he hit the waves to turn to me and talk.

“He likes you. He’s happy you're back around.” She said it matter-of-factly to me.

“No, he doesn’t. It’s not like that.” I parroted Jay’s words back to her, with zero context to their meaning, because that’s what he said. “Plus, hello, we’ve seriously known each other since we were five,” I answered shortly and started to play with the sand with my feet. I dug them deeper and deeper, until I felt the coolness a few layers down.

She just chuckled and rolled her eyes at me.

“You know how he never has a steady girlfriend, and he’s always the player, I’m sure even he realizes it’s getting old. I mean, come on, Meg, he’s over thirty, isn’t he? Don’t you think that at some point he wants to settle down? Maybe he’s had a thing for you all along and you’ve just never been available?” I laughed at that.

“I hardly doubt he has had a thing for me all along. He had many possibilities to tell me all about his secret love for me way before Brian was ever in the picture.”

I didn’t even want to ponder the possibility of him. That wasn’t the plan. My subconscious had already made up that I was going to go on a few dates with Andrew, so Brian would be jealous and see the error of his ways. Not that I wanted him back, I just wanted him to realize what he had lost. I shook my hands at her, signaling this conversation was over.

“Enough about me, please, dear Lord, tell me why you are such a disaster this morning, or shall we say afternoon. What kind of a night did you have last night?” I was beyond intrigued to hear this story, and I had been patiently waiting till she woke up to tell me. She immediately turned towards me, excited.

“Well, remember that really cute Assistant DA I told you about last night?” Of course I remembered! What kind of a friend did she take me to be? I turned myself towards her to give my undivided attention.

“Yes, yes, did he come over?” I squealed at her.

She clasped her hands together, and I leaned closer.

“Yes, and he brought about three bottles of wine with him when he did. Oh my God, Meg, he is so freaking cute. So, he comes over with the wine and brings movies, and we just kind of camp out in my living room, drinking wine and watching comedies, eating some cheese. It was just… fun. We laughed, we talked, and we fell asleep. I mean it. Just that. We fell asleep on the floor with all my pillows from my couch around us. He didn’t even try a move on me, and in the morning, he was gone. At first, I was like, what the hell? I mean, a night like that and all a sudden he’s gone?”

“Right. Oh my God, what happened?”

“Well, so, he left me a note saying that I looked too pretty to wake up. I found it on the coffee table. He left my apartment and got me a blueberry muffin, too. It was sitting right there next to the note. He must have taken my keys or something.”

I nodded and giggled.

“That and he cleaned up the glasses and bottles before he left. Other than the pillows and the blankets, I wouldn’t have even known he was there!” She said all this in what seemed like one breath. I smiled genuinely. I was so happy for her. She looked happy, there was a brightness in her eyes, and her cheeks were flushed while she told me the story.

“Oh, wow, Melis! I didn’t know that guys like that existed. He is quite the keeper. So, tell me, did you kiss him though?”

I asked. I had to ask. I know it was kind of a seventh-grade question, but seeing as neither Melissa nor I were very promiscuous, this was a normal question whenever one of us had a date.

She nodded quickly and laughed.

“Yes, during our second movie, it was this really romantic part, and the girl was standing in the street in the rain, and he comes up to her, and they meet in the middle of the street, and it was just one of those moments. Well, right when he grabs her and kisses her in the movie, he grabs and kisses me. And it was perfect, Meg. It was seriously the most perfect kiss I had ever had.” I thought for a moment, jogging my brain. I wanted so badly to recall a kiss between Brian and me at that moment; however, nothing came.

“Yeah, I know exactly what you mean.” I was sure that if I thought about it long enough that it would ring true. I mean, we’d been together ten years. During that time, we must have had at least one moment like that, right?

“Wow, I can’t believe I’m sitting here gushing about kissing the Assistant DA.” She laughed again. I realized at that point that I had no idea what this man’s name was.

“Does he have a name? Or do you call him ‘Assistant DA’ to his face?” I asked her.

“As far as you are concerned, that is his name.” She glared at me.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” I asked her, perplexed.

“Because I know you, Meg. I’ll tell you his name, and you will get on the computer playing amateur detective three minutes later. Googling him, checking for a Facebook or Instagram account, and basically internet stalking him for me. I like him, Meg, and even if there are some skeletons in his closet. Everyone has them. I’m choosing to leave them there to rot.” She said and looked down. I knew she was right. I had a way of doing that. Apparently, I wasn’t very good at watching what the people I was dating were up to, though. I might not have been so blindsided if I had done the same thing regarding Brian.

“Yeah, you’re right. Everyone has their skeletons. So good for you.”

And I meant it. I really wanted her to be happy. She deserved it; she was the best, best friend a girl could ask for.

“But remember, you can’t hide him forever. I need to meet him eventually!” I frowned at her. “How about you bring him Wednesday night to dinner, then it will be a group setting. I won’t even have an opportunity to grill him. I’ll be too busy keeping my mother from grilling everyone around me for information.”

She squirmed a little before answering. I felt a twinge of irritation. I wasn’t that bad, was I?

“Ugh, fine, but no funny stuff.”

I crossed my heart with my fingers and blew her a kiss. She responded by throwing sand at me.

“So anyway, enough about me and my perfect new man. Do you have a date tonight or what?”

I glanced to see if Jay was still out of earshot before I answered.

“Why yes, I do.” I looked at the sand when I answered her. I didn’t want her to know my little plan. I was one hundred and ten percent sure she would not approve. Let her think I’m doing this to get on with my life.

“Ok, well, that’s good. That’s better than sitting around your room waiting for the world to end. So why all the indecision? It’s written all over your face.”

I sighed. I might as well tell her. I mean, let’s be honest, she’d figure it out eventually and probably be pissed I lied to her. I frowned a bit and bit my lower lip, stalling.

“Well, here’s the thing. I don’t know how honorable my intentions are. I kind of was hoping that Brian would find out and get jealous. See, telling you this, saying it out loud, I realize how ridiculous and bad and mean-spirited it is! I’ll have bad karma for the rest of my life, and now I don’t know how to get out of it!”

I threw my hands up in the air and put my towel over my head. If she was going to rain a shit storm on me, I’d be prepared.

I peeked through a slit in the towel. She just looked concerned.

“And if he does get jealous, then what?” She looked down at the sand when she said that. “You want him back? After everything? I just don’t understand. I know you’re sad and upset. But why would you take someone back who did that to you?” She looked at me through the hole in the towel. I didn’t want to think about that, though. Because when I thought of him, there was still a sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach that needed to be filled with something.

“Listen, Meg, I’m not going to tell you what to do with your life. That’s never been my style. But, how about this? Why don’t you go out tonight and just have a good time? Don’t sit around wondering what Brian thinks, just go for you. If you don’t have fun, no harm, no foul. But don’t go there with that mission. In the end, everyone ends up getting hurt.”

I nodded. I was silent for a minute, watching the waves.

“Yeah, you’re right, I’m going to go tonight. Who knows, maybe he’ll be a great guy, or I’ll have a blast, or whatever. If something comes of it, then it was meant to be. If not, I had a good dinner, right?” I shrugged and figured this was going to be my mode of thought for the evening. Melissa shrugged, too.

“Yeah, good plan. What time is it now? Speaking of dates, you aren’t the only one with dinner plans this evening. A.D.A., as I will refer to him from now on, is coming back over at seven. I need to shower the sand, salt, and sweat off myself before he gets there.” I grabbed my cell phone out of my tote at her question and saw with alarm that it was already almost five o’clock. The sun should have given it away. I told her the time and started to get up and shake out my towel. At the commotion, Neesy lifted her head, got up, and did a big stretch, sticking her little nub of a tail right up into the air.

Jay had returned with Boo at that point, too. He shook out his own blanket and dried himself and Boo off with a towel.

“We packing it in, ladies?” He asked and grabbed the cooler for me. I said thanks, and we explained that it was time for us to mosey on out. Just then, there was a crackle of lightning in the distance.

“Jesus, looks like we will be in for a hell of a storm tonight. Better be careful while you are driving tonight, Meg.” Jay said and looked at me with a weird look.

“Well, I’ll be ok, I’m not going far, just down on Sconticut Neck Road to be exact. I probably won’t be out late either, seeing as we have work in the morning.” I relayed this information in the same way I would have told my parents not to wait up for me. I cringed at myself when it came out of my mouth.

Part 27

Are you enjoying? Please consider supporting my writing with a PayPal donation! Click below:

Buy me a cup of Coffee!