over 7 years ago from Dennis Schmidt, Product Designer at car2go
As a designer, it sometimes happens that you have to write a couple of sentences, right? At least if you don't have a proper copywriter. My question is: what's the best/easiest/most efficient way to learn some copywriting basics? Can you recommend any articles or books, anything like that?
Cheers
If I could only give you one tip from my experience - write for the visual brain. Write visuals, not just words.
Good luck.
Follow ADWEAK too
Great points, Jay.
I'd like to add:
I'd also recommend signing up for a larger blogging network. I occasionally wrote for SBNation's Celticsblog (Vox owned), and they've got a brilliant authors-only blog where they talk about how to write the best material you possibly can, backed up by tons of relevant numbers they've gotten from their many blogs.
That's just the best place to learn. Same as here on DN: surround yourself with people who are better than you and let your old pal Osmosis do the work.
Can't recommend enough The Elements of Non-Fiction Writing. It brings a reader-centered approach to how you should structure your text and gives you a bunch of tools to do so.
Yes, I had the name slightly wrong! Thanks for the correction.
I recommend buying a print copy and scribbling the shit out of it
Great, thanks!
On Writing Well by William Zinsser is also a great resource.
On Writing by Stephen King is another classic on life and how to write well. Super recommended too :)
Another amazing book, though not about writing specifically, is Good in a Room — a great source on how to pitch projects and sell your work.
Write more words--lots of them. Write like you speak (like a human). Then write some more. Then read the books everyone mentioned so you have a comparison. Then write more.
Practice in your emails. Practice in your notebook. Practice in your blog. Practice on Twitter and DN.
The more time you spend reading and writing directly correlates to your skill at both.
Running against most of the advice in this thread (egad!) my advice would to be to avoid most of the advertising books and study some of the master prose stylists like Joyce, McCarthy, Toole, etc. Granted, they won't teach you formulaic ways to come up with taglines, product copy, etc. However, they'll inspire the sort of whimsy and wordplay that delights your users/readers, and will help set you apart from all the other copywriters doing things "by the book".
Copyhackers is a robust resource. Good free content & newsletter, but the paid books (PDFs) are amazing and full of actionable content.
Worth a look and backing: http://copygui.de/
I thought "Microstyle: The Art of Writing Little" was pretty good. Gave concrete examples of short but sweet copy and broke down why it was so successful...
https://www.amazon.com/Microstyle-Writing-Little-Christopher-Johnson-ebook/dp/B0057QNZNG
I think the best book is Advertising Concept and Copy by George Felton Amazon Link
Login to Comment
You'll need to log in before you can leave a comment.
LoginRegister Today
New accounts can leave comments immediately, and gain full permissions after one week.
Register now