Posts Tagged ‘style’

Branding the little things

Tuesday, December 23rd, 2008

Building a brand is an important way to develop your business and attract customers, but I read a blog post recently that reminded me of branding even the small things to match your style guide.

Kylie posted that customising and branding your invoices is useful, and quite easy. Personally, I have always had my logo and other details in my invoices, but I hadn’t thought about changing the font. Many people would say that invoices are boring and nuisances rather than marketing tools – and that no one would ever notice what font the dollars are printed in – but it still part of being consistent and reinforcing the look of your business. It also shows an attention to detail for anyone who does notice the details of your invoice.

So, is your invoice branded? Does that include choice of font, wording style and colours/backgrounds?

Cannot or can’t?

Wednesday, July 16th, 2008

I was recently asked if it is grammatically better to use can’t instead of cannot.

Actually, both words are grammatically correct and context is the best basis for choosing which word to use.

When writing something formal, the word cannot is more appropriate; when writing soemthing informal and casual, you tend to use words as you would speak them, so can’t is quite appropriate and used more often.

There is nothing wrong with using either word in any context, but matching the word to the context helps the flow and style of your writing.