How to ensure your newsletter is *not* read

White space focuses attention on your content

Have you ever pitched aside a newsletter because its text was too dense?  I have.  I do it all the time.

I’m not alone.

It’s a shame, really, because the stories in those newsletters may be packed with good information.  I’ll never know because their editors committed a critical mistake.  In their efforts to save space, and in turn, money, they overlooked the importance of white space.

White space – the blank area around blocks of text or other design elements – gives context or meaning to the words it surrounds.  It helps focus your attention.

When Writing, Less is More
Incorporating white space is a tactic used all the time by high-end retailers. Think of an upscale brand – Tiffany & Co., Hermès, Jimmy Choo.  Their shelves are uncluttered. Peaceful. Each shelf displays a single item, transforming it from a potential purchase into a work of art.  Much like a gallery, the eye has place to rest and take in the unique nature character of each piece on display.

Translate that experience into writing.  If constructed correctly, each story in your newsletter should be a gem: informative, actionable.  But if that information is crammed into a too-small space, no one will notice it.  Unless they have a clear reason for wanting to dig for the good stuff, people will leave.  Your newsletter just became the written version of TJ Maxx.

I’ll be blunt: this is going to mean more work.  Writing concisely is always more difficult than writing at length because the words you retain must be more descriptive.  There’s no room for imprecision.  You have to make hard choices.

But as Keith Robertson points out in his essay “On White Space”:

“The image of what you present is more important than the paper you could be saving.”

And when it can spell the difference between your newsletter being read or pitched, making room for white space is a smart investment indeed.

Cool Tool: Pick free stock photos by color with morgueFile

Sources of free, high quality stock photos are always in demand.  Here’s one that lets you pick by color palette.

morgueFile is an image archive of free, high-resolution digital stock photography available for either corporate or public use.  The more than 200,000 photos are searchable by keyword, category, size, date, creative, rating or geo-tags.  You also can build or view portfolios and manipulate existing photos to create new images.  And there are online photography lessons and a community forum to help you do it.

But what caught my eye was the ability to search by color.

Find images to match any color
From the morgueFile home page, select the Color Picker tool.  The default search will show you all the images containing a particular shade of blue – #1e16f8, to be exact.

morgueFile / Zach Carter

To find photos containing another color, simply select Color from the filters to the left.  You can click in the color wheel or type in a specific hue.  In theory, anyway.  My attempt to find photos with matching #9bf816 – the color of my logo – resulted in 5 images, including the one I selected for this post.  However, I was unable to cajole the search engine into producing this same grouping again.  Clicking the color wheel produced results of a close enough green to satisfy me.

Variety of photos
There are many free stock photo sites, and some of them also let you pick photos by color.  One is openstockphotography.org.  Its archive is almost 10 times the size of morgueFile’s, and includes portraits of world leaders, art, and historic events.  But for the types of projects I’ve been working on lately, the candid style of many of the morgueFile photos is a better match.

No attribution requirements
Unlike some free photo archives, morgueFile images can be used without attribution, a boon to those seeking photos for commercial use.  For my blogging purposes, I’m happy to give credit.  Thank you, Zach Carter.

Where’d they get the name?
According to the morgueFile site:

A morgue file is a place to keep post production materials for use of reference, an inactive job file. The term “morgue file” is popular in the newspaper business to describe the file that holds past issues flats.

We’ll set aside the potential newspaper : morgue comparisons for now – bad taste.  I feel for you, friends.

Fun Extras
In morgueFile’s Extras section, you can download photos to use as wallpaper for your iPhone.  Beautiful images.  Now, if only I had an iPhone to download them onto.  Sigh.

5 ways to pick photos that advance your cause

Flickr / kelvin255

Here’s a little game for you.  Open the next newsletter you receive.  Check out the photos.   Chances are good that in the mix you’ll find at least one of the following:

A – A row (or three) of people smiling at the camera
B – People in suits flanking a big check, smiling
C – Couples attending a recent fundraiser, smiling

Notice anything similar about the three categories?  Aside from the grins, they’re ubiquitous, and they’re boring.

Photos add tremendous vitality to a story, not to mention literal and figurative color.  In fact, done well, they can tell a story on their own.  So how do you breathe life into your photos?  Here are 5 techniques that don’t require you or your staff to be an expert photographer:

1. Crop aggressively

Flickr / Sailing "Footprints:...

There’s no rule that says you have to include a person’s whole body.  Or that the photo has to be centered.

2. Use more candids

Yes, this is a photo of people at a party.  But though this trio may have known the camera was around, they weren’t posing for it.  When people pose for a photo, they have to take time out from the activity they’re enjoying.  Candids bring the viewer in.

3. Compile a series of related photos

Flickr / Oslo in the Summertime

A comic strip can tell a story in a few panels, and so can you.  This is a great technique to use if you have a few photos and none of them is good enough to stand on their own.

4. Focus on the activity, not the result

Flickr / carf

Instead of trying to capture the feel-good moment at the conclusion of an event with a posed photo of all involved, illustrate the program in progress.  Include a photo of a volunteer making posters or of a family dropping off canned goods.  Readers can extrapolate from the face of one child the impact that an educational program will have on a whole school. They can then read about the program’s results in the accompanying article.

5. Let captions help you tell your story

Flickr / alexanderdrachmann

If you don’t have the right photo for a story you need to tell, include a seemingly unrelated image and use the caption to make the connection.  Captions are the third-most frequently read element in a newsletter – right behind headlines and subheads – so use them to your advantage.

What else?

These suggestions are a starting point only.  Can you add to the list?  What are your techniques for picking photos that move beyond the grip and grin and help tell your stories?