Jackson Designs

12/03/2020

Does anybody still read a real paper book in bed? It's much better than reading from a screen.

05/03/2020

Happy Random Costume day!

THIRTY THINGS THE BASTARDS NEVER TELL YOU ABOUT WORLD BOOK DAY

#1 Until you become a parent or a teacher, you will likely have never heard of World Book Day.

#2 And will think it sounds like some kind of lovely initiative, designed to promote the value of reading to young children.

#3 This just goes to show that you do not understand World Book Day AT ALL.

#4 World Book Day can be roughly translated as World Competitive Parenting Day.

#5 Or World My Job Is Already Pretty Fu***ng Challenging, Why Are You Trying To Make It Even Worse, Day - if you are a teacher.

#6 World Book Day requires your child to identify their favourite book.

#7 Not so simple as it might sound.

#8 No, YouTube is not a book.

#9 But World Book Day is not just about your child identifying their favourite book, oh no.

#10 They then have to DRESS UP as their favourite character from that book, because World Book Day fu***ng hates parents.

#11 "Well how hard can it be?!" you may think to yourself, as a parent new to World Book Day. "Surely they can just dress up as the little boy or girl in the story and wear their own clothes?"

#12 No.

#13 No, in my experience, this almost never happens, because kids are frequently dicks.

#14 I mean, why agree to go as Charlie from Charlie and the Chocolate Factory or Lucy from The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe...

#15 ...when you could go as sodding Buckbeak from Harry Potter.

#16 F**k. My. Actual. Life.

#17 If you fall into the small area of the Venn diagram where Competitive, Crafty and Super Organised Parenting overlap...then you will likely be in seventh heaven.

#18 For the rest of us, not so much.

#19 But it's okay, because the supermarkets have picked up on the commercial opportunities World Book Day has afforded them, and now you too can go and s***k an extortionate amount of money up the wall on a costume that your child will take one look at and start howling, because they know they said they wanted to go as Cinderella, but that was twenty minutes ago, and now the only character they can possibly dress up as for World Book Day is Emmet from The Lego Movie, even though The Lego Movie is by its own admission NOT A FU***NG BOOK.

#20 If you are extremely lucky, your children will go to a school which will write to you and tell you that on World Book Day pupils will not be required to dress up at all, but will simply be asked to carry out the radical act of celebrating World Book Day...by bringing in and reading a book.

#21 Head teachers of schools such as this should frankly be considered for canonisation for services to parents.

#22 If you are extremely unlucky...your children will go to a school which has decided to go rogue for World Book Day.

#23 And you will instead be required to dress up...a potato.

#24 No, I didn't make that up.

#25 Or your child will be asked to dress as a word.

#26 Or a feeling.

#27 Or a fronted adverbial.

#28 If you are a teacher with children, you will have the joys of dressing up both your children AND yourself for World Book Day! SUCH FUN!

#29 But it's all okay, because World Book Day does remind us of something very very important.

#30 That, when it comes to parenting, you can never stock up on too much gin.

************************************

I WROTE TWO BOOKS! Out now:

Absolutely Smashing It: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Absolutely-Smashing-When-means-family/dp/0751574988

Winning At Life: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Winning-at-Life-Kathryn-Wallace/dp/0751574996

Instagram: www.instagram.com/iknowineedtostoptalkingblog

Twitter: www.twitter.com/IKINTST

18/02/2020

Spot the typo!

This is why I always do a quick additional proofread when I set a book! Mistakes can, and inevitably always will, happen 😉

16/02/2020

🤣 I know you shouldn't deface books but ... this is so tempting!!

15/02/2020

I stand by this 100% 🤣

13/02/2020

"Keep writing, keep trying. You’ll get there."

Some great advice here from authors to aspiring writers.

"Keep writing, keep trying. You’ll get there."

02/02/2020

Not just audio books!!

31/01/2020

I don't know if it's just me, but I am never 100% I'm putting things into title case correctly. So, I thought I'd share this great website I use to check: http://titlecase.com/

It's also useful if you want to convert text from upper to lower case or vice-versa without re-typing it!

Convert text to Title Case, UPPERCASE, lowercase, CamelCase, Pascal Case, Start Case, snake_case, hyphen-case, ...

29/01/2020

Too true 😬

28/01/2020

I’m working with an author at the moment who loves ellipses! I remember having a conversation with him years ago about their proper use and I wondered how many others would also be interested.

Firstly an ellipsis is not just a random string of dots. It shouldn’t be two, five, or ten … it should be three! In layout software there is normally a specific key to produce one – it’s not just three full stops in a row that can be spaced anyhow. So it should be considered a single piece of punctuation, or even as a word as this helps think about spacing.

Ellipses are mainly used to indicate something has been omitted, but can also be used for effect, for example, to indicate incomplete, interrupted or trailing, thoughts.

There are various acceptable styles people use for spacing, but personally, I space it as if it were a word. So I would put a single space between it and other words, but not between it and punctuation or quotation marks. If it is being used to symbolise trailing off mid-word I run it on from the word itself as if substituted for the rest of the letters. For example:

Hello … is it me you’re looking for?
Hello, is it me you’re looking for …?
“Hello, it’s me you’re looking for …”
“Hello, is it me you’re loo…” “Let me interrupt you there”

Does that make sense? Let me know if that helps you at all!!!

27/01/2020

Have you heard of "The Crystal Goblet"?

When it comes to book design it is a phrase I always come back to. It is an essay on typography by Beatrice Warde which basically says design should be invisible. The work I do as a designer is not to show off my own design style but to show off the author's writing.

If you had an expensive wine would you serve it in a golden goblet covered in jewels that took attention away from the wine itself? Or would it be better served in a clear crystal goblet that gave all the attention to the wine?

A book is a means for an author to get their content to the reader, my job is to make this as attractive, enjoyable and simple as I can for the reader.

25/01/2020

Not only do I design and set books but sometimes I stick my nose into a little bit of editing and only yesterday I learnt this - that the phrase "just deserts" is spelt as such! It's "deserts" in the sense of 'things deserved' rather than anything to do with desserts. 🍮🍨🍰

Did you know that?! Is it just me!!?

The meaning and origin of the phrase 'Just deserts'.