Sometimes more is more

- by melaroo

In general, I’m a minimalist. I have three pieces of furniture in my bedroom, and if it weren’t democratic I’d have one. I don’t own tie tacks and I only wear cuff links with two shirts out of my entire wardrobe. And when I create a logo, I like for it to be so simple that a four-year-old could make it out of clay. But now and then I workshop a project with a client, and the client requests revisions that amount to “adding lots of stuff”, and the result turns out really rad. Read It!

Localizing Content for International Readers: Macro and Micro Approaches

- by melaroo

We want to be good writers and designers, so we want our readers to interpret our message in the way we intend it – always with goodwill toward readers. International audiences can be especially sensitive to work with because of cultural differences – for example, a healthcare site with purple as the dominant color might deter a Thai audience, since Thai culture associates the color purple with death and widows. EEK! So with globalization constantly expanding, localization becomes a necessary skill in the web and content management sphere. Consider approaching the task at two levels: Read It!

Ethics of Technical Illustration

- by melaroo

Part of our role as marketers is to crusade for a healthy, useful, informative web. So we set out on the noble quest to be honest, accurate, and never misrepresent our information or deceive our audience. TyAnna Kay Herrington explains that, “readers bring less sophistication and thus less skepticism to the comprehension of a graphic representation.” So basically we as readers are more susceptible to falling for the old parlor tricks of advertising. It doesn’t make us dumb, it’s just that we’re usually not paying that much attention. We’d like to think these sources are honest. Read It!

This is how I imagine myself

- by melaroo

I know we all have illusions about who we are. How others perceive us and we perceive ourselves are, in most cases, two completely different perceptions. For instance, my mom has a friend named Tina who does that little smack thing with her lips that people do when they’re about to move on to their next point, then follows it with the little just-drunk-a-glass-of-water gasp. Read It!

Melaroo says ‘goodbye’ to Lorem Ipsum

- by melaroo

Perpetuating the Melaroo tradition of constantly improving on the status quo, Creative Director Ted Hawkes has developed a new line of placeholder text that promises to replace Lorem Ipsum as the default type plugin for printers and designers. Read It!