Extreme Makeovers

Everyone’s interested in a makeover. In fact, whole television series are devoted to them. People are being made over. Rooms are being made over. Backyards are being made over. Entire houses are being made over. There are reasons for the popularity of these shows. They enable people to see what they can accomplish with the right team of experts. The worse the starting point, the more extreme the makeover.

Why should our methods of communication be any different?

Case Studies

Have you ever been really pleased at the results of a redesign? Maybe you reworked a website, illustration, manual, brochure, or quick reference guide. Why not show everyone what a difference you made by providing us with a before and after shot so that we can see how it started and the end result? Tell us what you changed and why you changed it. Don’t be modest; give us the details about the reaction to the new design, and any benefits that your company may have experienced because of the redesign.

If you have confidential information, and the text is not critical do what you are demonstrating, then substitute the original text with dummy text. We don’t want to miss out on your great design ideas just because the text is proprietary. We’re visual people. We will get the general idea, even if the original text is not the same.

The Value Proposition

This exercise will enable you to:

1. Learn from mistakes that others have corrected so that you don’t have to make those same mistakes yourself.
2. See the things that you need to change, instead of just reading about what to do and not do when laying out pages.
3. Show employers, co-workers, and even friends, what types of things you are capable of doing in your line of work.

Submissions

Please submit your extreme makeovers to quill@stc-soc.org. Remember to include your before and after pictures, a description of the changes, and the reactions to the changes. The number of submissions we receive will determine how many case studies we publish in The Quill each month. If you have any questions, contact Margie at quill@stc-soc.org or Debbie at president@stc-soc.org.