It's Called Stationery!!!

There are more than a few things that annoy the heck out of me in this world of design and marketing. Probably one of the biggest pet peeves that gets up my nose is how industry ‘professionals’ overlook the importance of proper spelling!

It’s particularly frustrating to see industry references misspelled by the pros. Be they designers, writers or other such experts, too many in this business rely on the wisdom of the almighty Spell-Checker more so than their Grade Three Language Arts notebooks.

They don’t pay attention to the details of their work!

If they were paying attention, they would know the difference between ‘stationery’ and ‘stationary’.

We’re not talking about the semantics between American and British spellings here. The debate will never end between whether or not there should be a ‘u’ in the word ‘colour’.

(There it is again, that imbecilic Micro-Snot spellchecker telling me I’ve misspelled ‘colour’ when I’ve told it time and again that this is the way I want it spelled…)

Colour, colour, colour, colour, colour, colour, colour, COLOUR!!!!

Ahem. Back to the issue at hand…

No, this is not a U.S. – Canadian spelling bee. I’m talking about using the correct word in its proper context. And it’s about taking a few extra minutes to double-check that you’ve got it right.

But few people these days take the time to check!

What got me ranting on this subject today was the proliferation of references to ‘stationary’ when designers were referencing items in their portfolio.

One such designer was a hotshot magazine art director in New York City. Madison Avenue type… you know, the one that has to build an addition onto his estate to house him AND his ego…

Gotta give him some street cred… GORGEOUS web site. But that one, small detail just got my goat. I thought: “How could a professional this high up in our industry make such an obvious blunder?”

We designers, of all computer users in the WORLD, should know the difference between ‘stationary’ and ‘stationery’! So how does this happen?

Too many designers – and computer users in general – have gotten LAZY!

We all want to trust technology to do our thinking for us. We convince ourselves that if nothing pops up with that little red squiggly line underneath it, it MUST be spelled right! After all, it passed through the spell-checker!

For too long now, we’ve put WAY too much faith in spell-checkers. The results? I mean, aside from the general denigration of the English language…

Can I tell you how many web sites I see in a day that are absolutely riddled with misspellings?

Can I tell you how many print jobs I’ve seen over the years that have been distributed to customers with misspellings in them?

Can I tell youwhat kind of impression that makes on customers… and how much it can damage your BRAND?

I’ll be honest with you… when I find a misspelling on a piece of marketing material, that company or individual INSTANTLY LOSES CREDIBILITY with me.

I’m a piranha that way. I make no apologies for it.

Oh… and do you want to take a wild stab at how much MONEY is spent reprinting jobs with spelling errors in them?

SAVE MONEYANDYOUR CREDIBILITY!

In most circumstances, it helps to have a piranha, not a computer, checking over the details on your marketing materials – with a fine-toothed comb.

Stationary:     1: fixed in a station , course, or mode  : IMMOBILE

                        2: unchanging in condition stationary population 

Designers may have 'stationery' items in their portfolio, but their clients won't remain 'stationary' for long.  They'll eventually leave for someone who goes over those little details for them.