John McGarvey – web copywriter

UK train stations are a rich source of poorly-written and confusing signs. Take this label, spotted at Reading station.

‘Platform lighting controller’? That’ll be what the rest of us call a light switch.

I can’t think of a single situation where you’d ever describe this as a ‘platform lighting controller’, so why do so here? It just creates confusion.

I particularly like the helpful information beneath: ‘When the indictor [sic] is lit, platform lights are on.’ Spelling error aside, it’s worth knowing that I spotted this label while standing on the platform. So I expect it’s fairly obvious when the lights are on. It would be dark otherwise.

Complicated terminology makes things harder to understand. Unnecessary information detracts from the really important stuff. As labels go, this is a good example of how not to do it.

One of the most popular posts on this blog is my list of favourite tabloid headlines. I believe writing great headlines is an art – one that I hope doesn’t get killed off by our obsession with cramming as many keywords into web page titles as possible.

I was just flicking back through some old photos on my phone and noticed a couple of headlines I’ve snapped that are too good not to share. The first is from earlier this year, when anchorman Richard Keys left his job at Sky Sports. It’s short, to the point, and absolutely nails the story:

But it’s the second that I’m more impressed with. Cast your mind back to last autumn and one of the year’s rare good news stories.

Now, imagine you’re a sub-editor at The Sun. How are you going to lead on the story? Would it occur to you to take the name of a band, then carefully change a word here and there to result in a headline of wit and beauty?

No, me neither. You might sometimes question the quality of tabloid journalism, but you can’t deny the intelligence of their headlines.

(Read about some other great tabloid headlines that I’ve spotted.)

A week or so ago I posted a bunch of badly-translated signs I spotted while on holiday in China in 2009. Here’s the second installment.

1. At least people will remember the name

I actually spotted this shop in Hong Kong’s Mong Kok area. With that name, I wonder if they’ve ever considered expanding into the UK.

2. Choiceness raw material

Mmmm, appetising.

3. Protect CircumStance

Spotted on the back of a bin in Shanghai. I guess the sentiment is right, even if the wording could be better. And CircumStance could be a strangely-capitalised web 2.0 brand.

4. …from the small start around

Is this the Chinese equivalent of ‘every little helps’? Actually, I think it’d be great if recycling bins over here were called reverse vending machines.

5. Step into my office

Of all the signs I saw, this was the one that made me laugh out loud. Spotted in a shop in Beijing’s super-cool 798 Space (well worth a visit, by the way). I wonder if the people in the office got more than they bargained for.

If you’re looking for a decent, free image editing tool, but don’t need the expense of Photoshop or the complexity of GIMP, I can highly recommend Paint.NET.

However, if you plan on downloading this free software, stay sharp when you’re on the Paint.NET website. Because the link to download isn’t quite as obvious as it seems:

That big ‘DOWNLOAD’ button with the huge green arrow that drags your eyes in and won’t let go? That’s not it.

It is, in fact, an advert. It takes you to www.searchale.com, a site offering ‘the ultimate search tool’ – as far as I can tell, a toolbar you can download and use in your web browser.

I can’t find much other information about the company, apart from this complaint from someone who had the ad appear unexpectedly on their own website. So my advice would be to steer clear.

Oh, the actual download link? It’s up the top there, just beneath the logo:

It’s not hard to see how SearchAle benefits from this advertising. I’m sure there are more people using its toolbar then there would have been otherwise.

I just wonder how many of those people actually wanted it, or even understood what they were downloading.

Chinglish is English which has been inaccurately translated into Chinese. I always thought its prevalence on signs and notices in China was overstated. Until, that is, I visited to China for myself in 2009. Here are five of the best examples I spotted on that three week trip.

1. No strinding

Spotted at Chengdu Panda Base. Please, please drop me a line if you know what this means.

2. Don’t visit the head

If you happen to visit the Great Wall at Mutianyu, make sure you don’t lose your head. Or something.

3. LOOKOUTKNOCKHEAD

There must be a lot of concern for people’s heads. Spotted at the Summer Palace.

4. Avoid this restaurant

I think I had a curry with similar after-effects once.

5. The grass is smiling

The Olympic Park in Beijing has various friendly signs encouraging you not to do things.

Don’t forget to check back soon for part two…

Registration forms can have you tearing your hair out. They want every personal detail known to man, moan if you don’t enter them in exactly the right format – and throw up hopelessly vague errors if you get anything wrong.

There truly are some shockers out there. And that’s probably why the good ones stick in your head.

I stumbled upon one just the other day. The sign up form for WordPress.com really is a thing of beauty. It’s clear, straightforward, and only asks you to type in four bits of information.

What’s more, it includes this delightfully playful text that sums up just what we all really think about agreeing to terms and conditions:

“Legal flotsam: I have read and agree to the fascinating terms of service”

I wonder how they got that one past the legal team. Nice work, WordPress.

It’s never been easier to find photos for your website. Pile-’em-high-sell-’em-cheap stock photography companies like iStockPhoto, Shutterstock and Fotolia allow you to purchase photos for as little as a pound or two.

These sites have drastically cut the cost of getting hold of images without worrying about copyright issues. I use them, so I should know. But there’s one big problem: when you pay so little, you don’t get any control over who else uses the photos.

Those images are sold again and again and again. Some of them are exceptionally popular – and that can spell embarrassment for your website.

I’ve trawled iStockPhoto – one of the biggest stock imagery sites – to bring you these five examples of stock photography that’s been rather, well, overexposed. If you’re looking for images to illustrate your website, steer well clear of these.

From web hosting to chief marketing officer

Plenty of websites seem to like the look of this lady. When she’s not urging you to “get more now” over at Midphase Hosting, she’s also putting in an appearance at Data102, a Colorado Springs hosting centre.

Then there’s marketing. She’s been standing in as a chief marketing officer for Brand Week – and been involved in this article about self branding. Busy lady.

A tired metaphor for growth

If you’re growing a business, here’s one visual metaphor you might want to steer clear of. It’s a very well-trodden path, you see. It might have been Clydesdale Ventures that first used this image. Or maybe it was Ian Brodie. Or Accelerate Media.

In hard copy, the books Recession Thriving and Trading Pain for Peace both have strikingly similar covers. Those green shoots of recovery are certainly spreading. Continue reading ‘Porn, pharmacies and phone sex. Who’s using the photos on your website?’

I had dinner in a Giraffe restaurant the other night. You know the places: friendly staff, reasonable food, good value – and plenty of two-for-one vouchers available online.

In fact, their whole website is pretty decent, and they understand how to use Twitter too.

Anyway, towards the end of the evening I did the usual um-and-er over dessert thing, until spotting the cheesecake on the menu. Had it just been “chocolate cheesecake”, I might have declined. But “milky double bubble chocolate cheesecake”? How could I say no?

That’s the power of good copywriting.

Some years ago I worked as a web editor for an IT firm. We used to run occasional competitions. One of the best parts of that job was phoning people up to tell them they’d won a prize – a PC or games console, say.

We always used to put quite a lot of thought into what to give away. We wanted things that would be eyecatching and useful too. We didn’t really want our competition winners to go sticking what they’d won straight up on eBay.

That job would be much easier today. There’s only one prize that anyone who’s anyone is giving away at the moment: Apple’s iPad.

I’ve come to this conclusion after noticing a spate of tweets, adverts, emails and websites, all promoting competitions to win the giant iPhone. And it really is quite astounding how many websites are giving this gadget away.

Unbeatable, Bitter Wallet, Pocket Lint, UK2,  Review Centre, T3 and Travolution. All these are UK-based sites, giving away a gadget which isn’t even officially available in the UK yet. When you widen it to US sites, it just gets silly.

Try Dummies.com, Zagg, SEOMOZ, Mashable, Symantec, Digg, PCMag and authorStream for starters. So many companies are giving the things away that there must be a danger of a shortage for ordinary buyers.

This got me thinking. Could the number of competitions offering a given item as a prize be indicative of the appeal of that prize? And if so, could companies use this statistic as some form of market research?

(Image courtesy of Apple.)

I like it when restaurants take the time to get their branding right. It implies a similar amount of effort has gone in to the food.

I had a meal in a Reading eaterie a couple of weeks ago. The bill turned up with this witty “with condiments” card, which perfectly fit the modern, relaxed feel of the place, and made me chuckle.

As it turned out the food was excellent, but if it hadn’t been, at least the clever copywriting would’ve gone some way to making up for it.