Read
68 Olympics Graphic Design
It’s Friday before a (hopefully) long weekend. Let’s take a break from marketing just this once.
Today, we’re serving up an intriguing podcast about the graphic design campaign from the 1968 Olympic Games.
Fun fact: Mexico City’s 1968 Olympic Games included a ground-breaking graphic design campaign that completely reshaped design for all future Olympics. To show the world they were a major metropolis, a la London, NYC, and Rome, Mex City went above and beyond in their design. But… it didn’t go as planned.
Listen to how this graphic design campaign was quickly derailed in this 23-minute podcast from 99% Invisible.
Read
12 Writing & Formatting Tactics to Get Your Posts Read
….Aaaand back to marketing. Getting looks from our boss, like.
Did you know that, on average, website users read between 20-28% of the words on a page? Ouch. That 1,000-word blog post you spent hours writing and editing? Yeah, people are probably only reading about 280 words of it. Damn.
Luckily, Neil Patel has 12 tips for you to format your blog posts so that people read more of them (but hopefully all of them).
Here’s some of his tips:
- Frontload your blog posts. Get all the good stuff in first to hook readers and keep ’em hooked.
- Use a lot of subheads to break up your post and catch someone’s eye as they’re scrolling through your page.
- Blockquotes make a big difference – they break up text and likely include keywords that will catch a reader’s eye as they scan the page.
- Write in a conversational style. Check!
- Use Hemingway to keep your sentences and thoughts short. Complexity bores readers.
- W H I T E S P A C E. It’ll break up your text and make your post less intimidating to read.
Get all 12 tips in today’s Read.
Watch
A Volvo Ad to Give You Goosebumps
You should know by now that we really love to dunk memorable advertisements into the Watch once or twice a week – especially on Fridays. (See also: today’s Listen.) Sometimes, they’re just so good we can’t help but give ‘em a shout out.
That is very much the case with today’s Watch, a poignant (yes, we may have shed a tear) and beautifully produced commercial from Volvo. Directed by the ridiculously talented Gustav Johansson, it travels through a lifetime in just three-minutes. It also showcases the XC60 new safety features in a big way. Grab a sweater, it brings the chills.
“Actually talk to your customers. Use the language that they use. Talk about the things they talk about. Never feed salad to a lion.”
Jay Acunzo
