BLOG: Eye-Popping Tips

From Karen Saunders

Your Branding, Marketing & Self-Publishing Coach



Archive for the ‘fonts’ Category

April 28th, 2009 | By: Karen Saunders

Polish Your Book Interior with Proven Typesetting Techniques

Choose Appropriate Fonts for Your Self-Published Book Interior A quick look on your software reveals myriad choices of fonts and you can always find more! But like shopping in a candy store, you have to make judicious selections. It is important to select appropriate fonts to communicate your message to your readers, particularly when dealing with titles and headlines. Why? Because specific fonts can evoke a certain attitude and feeling that reinforces your intended message. Fonts for Headlines Choose a bold font with the right personality for your book interior. After all, fonts (like people) have personalities, and different designs…

Read More


September 23rd, 2007 | By: Karen Saunders

How to Create Professional Book Page Layouts

Your book’s more than a collection of words on pages. It’s your baby. But will other people find it as beautiful as you do? That depends. How do you dress it? In other words, what do your pages look like? Layout makes all the difference. You can have the most riveting, meaningful, Nobel prize-worthy masterpiece in the bookstore, but it will be very lonely on those shelves if no one wants to buy it. Here’s how John Q. Citizen shops for a book. He saunters into his favorite bookshop with nothing in particular in mind to purchase. He picks up…

Read More


August 26th, 2007 | By: Karen Saunders

Business Card Design: Make Your First Impression Last — Part 2

In Part 1 of my “First Impression Last” story, I told you about my quest to find a contractor to landscape my backyard . . . and the trouble I had figuring out who’s who with the generic batch of business cards I brought home from the local home show! I finally did get in touch with the right person for the job, but it was almost like finding a needle in a haystack. It shouldn’t be that hard to figure out what your specialty or niche is with a good business card design. I was at a Chamber of Commerce…

Read More


July 22nd, 2007 | By: Karen Saunders

Business Card Layout: Make Your First Impression Last — Part 1

Let me tell you about the last home show I went to. It was your typical home show with lots of booths, pretty displays, loads of freebies. But I wasn’t interested in all that. I was on a mission. I needed a landscaping contractor to take my dismal, ordinary backyard and turn it into Fantasy Island. Not too much to ask, right? I was prepared to spend all day, if necessary, talking with every last landscaping contractor there in order to find someone to make my dream come true. So I grabbed a tall mocha on the way in, took…

Read More


January 27th, 2007 | By: Karen Saunders

10 Tips on How to Create a Distinctive Logo

Think of any large company, and I’ll bet you can picture its logo. It seems like they must have been born with it, but they weren’t. Every logo had to start somewhere. And you can start building recognition right now that will continue for years when you create a strong visual brand. To do this, you’ll need to learn how to create a distinctive logo. A good logo will be visually captivating, and will tell people what your company does and what it stands for. And then you can carry that logo onto just about everything that leaves your office, from…

Read More


July 27th, 2006 | By: Karen Saunders

Design your Product Packaging with Maximum Impact

If you’re a speaker, author, or small business consultant with recorded presentations, teleseminars or workshops, you should think about leveraging your knowledge and expertise into products. You can create audio CDs, video DVDs, VHS and cassette tapes and sell them on your website or after your events. You may want to sell them separately, bundled together or consider doing a joint venture product with someone in a complementary field. You can hire a service to transcribe your recordings and create an ebook or printed workbook. The quality of your products start with your recordings and ends with your packaging design….

Read More


January 29th, 2006 | By: Karen Saunders

Award-winning Designer Reveals Secrets to Attractive Page Layouts

The way a book interior is designed has a part in whether the book will sell or not. A customer will not read—or buy—a book that is designed in a way that is difficult to read. If the type in your book is too small, or the spaces between the lines are too narrow, many prospective customers will move on to another book. Your goal with book design is to create an interior that is inviting, pleasing, and easy to read. This involves good use of fonts, word spacing, leading, line length, and alignment. Here are some techniques that professional…

Read More


January 10th, 2006 | By: Karen Saunders

What is Good Visual Branding — and Why Is It So Important to Your Business?

Have you ever asked yourself why a competitor’s business gets more attention than yours? The answer just may have to do with the elements that go into how memorable the business is. And that has to do with branding. But exactly what is branding, anyway? Think of branding as predefining what a company is all about in the minds of its clients. Good branding differentiates your products and services in a positive way that really sticks in the minds of potential customers. Let’s say you have been traveling around town without your morning coffee and are getting just a little…

Read More


January 3rd, 2006 | By: Karen Saunders

Five Design Techniques to Turn Your Marketing Pieces into Marketing Masterpieces

It’s almost 5 o’clock on Friday afternoon. Do you know where your newest marketing pieces are? If you’re a small business owner, they may be buried on your desk because you’ve got so many other important details to handle. Or they’re still sitting on your assistant’s desk where she’s staring at them hopelessly. She’s an admin assistant, for heaven’s sake, not a designer, and she knows what she’s produced so far is not very memorable or effective. All of us would like to think our product is so good, our services so unique, they’ll simply sell themselves. Not so! Strong…

Read More


December 22nd, 2005 | By: Karen Saunders

First Impressions Count! Lasting Impressions Sell! Bet Your Business Card on It!

It’s the trade show of the year, and you’re poised to meet, greet and network up a storm because the precise buyers for your product or services are here. Business card? Check. Sales brochures? Check. Product samples, informational literature, or other appropriate peripherals? Check. But wait. Let’s go back to item #1 – both in the list above and the all-important first step in creating a strong, lasting and favorable impression. In other words, what you looked like or said may not be remembered when potential customers are back home, but your business card will be in the pile he’ll…

Read More