Font and Page Layout Challenge

I received this email this morning, and feel that the message would get a greater response and drive the point home a little better if the Barrister used a better typeface and considered laying out the message with perhaps a letterhead logo, use of columns, and color, definitely color.

So here's the text; let's see how Xara can rescue this missive:

Before I proceed, I must first apologize for this unsolicited letter to you. I am aware that this is certainly not a conventional way of approach to establish a relationship of trust, but you will realize the need for my action. My name is Benatt Zinn of Benatt Zinn chambers, London, UK. Actually, I got your contact information from your country data directory (South Africa) on my recent visit to your country, while searching for a last name similar to my late client a South African; therapist at a Budapest center for children with motor disabilities. She died along with her son on the Afriqiyah Airways Airbus A330 crashed on landing at Tripoli airport after a flight from Johannesburg.

Before her death, she deposited the sum of £12.5M with a bank here in London, England. The bank has mandated me to present any family heir/inheritor for claim before the fund gets confiscated as an unclaimed fund. So I decided to search for any of my late client's relative which has been very difficult for me, as she did not declare any other person, address, partner or relatives in the official paper works of her deposit except her late son.

Against this backdrop, my suggestion to you is that I will like you as a South African to stand as the next of kin to late Dr. Rita, since you share the same last name. With my position as her lawyer, I will now place your name as the next of kin to my late client. I will prepare every relevant document that will assist your claims, and facilitate the release of the fund.

Note that this transaction is risk free. There is no atom of risk in connection to this business as I have worked out all modalities to complete the transaction successfully. Once the money is released to you, we shall share in the ratio of 50% for me, 50% for you as your benefit then we will map out 5% to upset any expenses made on the process of this transaction. Reply via my private Email: Please be kind to get back to me if you are not interested so that I can further my search for another partner.


Best Regards

Barrister Benatt Zinn
Benatt Zinn Chambers,
London, UK.


Yeah, right—

Gary, Lucky Recipient

Attachment 110582
Acorn

I love the fact that these Barristers, Princes, Finance Ministers in Exile, etc. don't have corporate domain names but use gmail or some other unprofessional e-mail address. And considering the fact that they wish to entrust a tidy sum of cash that they don't include your name on the e-mail.

I like the not an atom of risk. Nice eloquent touch.

Spam? Nah.

@Acorn—perfect!

That design will certainly make this "Letter from Nigeria" go around!

And around, and around...

My Best,

Gary

Quote:

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Originally Posted by gwpriester

I love the fact that these Barristers, Princes, Finance Ministers in Exile, etc. don't have corporate domain names but use gmail or some other unprofessional e-mail address.

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Yeah, who is this guy (or gal) kidding? Anyways??

I happen to know for a fact that Barristers in the Untied States don't send offers of money in email. A Barrister in the US, pours expresso at Starbucks:


Attachment 110596

...and these guys (and gals) work for minimum-wage, so they can't possibly go sending millions of dollars around when they have college loans to pay off, also in the millions.

Yeesh!

Nobody's Fool,

Gary

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Gare

@Acorn—perfect!
That design will certainly make this "Letter from Nigeria" go around!
And around, and around...
My Best,
Gary

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Gary, I had intended to make it spiral inwards to the sound of a toilet flush but I reconsidered and left it as an outward flow of effluent.
Acorn

Look like someone listened - haha

Quote:

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Originally Posted by chrisneil

Look like someone listened - haha

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Welcome to TalkGraphics. Apart from this "improved" scam letter, what are your graphic interests as you've not indicated which Xara application you're running.

I was going to suggest, we compete to improve the scales of justice.

Acorn

P.S. In case people don't read from the start of the Post, the detail in the letters are SCAMS.
Don't give them the air to breathe.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Acorn

Welcome to TalkGraphics. Apart from this "improved" scam letter, what are your graphic interests as you've not indicated which Xara application you're running.

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I agree. We don't want to believe now, Chris, that you yourself are a scammer! :)

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Acorn

I was going to suggest, we compete to improve the scales of justice.

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Sounds like a plan, Acorn.

Shall we do something more appropriate with the scales, such as tipping them, or start fresh with a new graphical idea that represents the fine and diligent barristers of the internet? I'm in favor of an avatar at the top of the email, resembling Mr. Potato Head.

My Best,

Gary

Personally, I think that a 50% share of £12.5M plus 5% for expenses is a little high as a lawyers fee. I wouldn't offer a penny more than 10% including expenses. Although to be fair, finding and sending to 5,000,000 email addresses may have been a challenge.

I felt a bird's eye view might be interesting;

Attachment 111222

Acorn

Woah, Acorn, I love that! It's quite attention-getting, much more so than the text in the letter!

Way to go, man!

Now, Keith rightly noted that the amounts seem a tad unrealistic. Okay, snicker, snicker...the whole thing seems a tad unrealistic, but seriously, folks, do we want to mess with the grammar, wording, in essence play Copy Editor, or is that going too far and ruining this poor Barrister's style and presentation he or she worked so hard on?

Might we begin with a better choice of typeface?

Are there italic and Condensed versions of Comic Sans?

Putting out cookies for Santa soon,

Gary

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Gare

...
Are there italic and Condensed versions of Comic Sans?

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Well, not condensed, but there is a better Comic Sans available:

Attachment 111224

Thanks, Mike.

You know, a lot of times, successful advertising is a medium of exaggeration. With that, I dug up a typeface called Kid's Crayon, and I think it better illustrates the plight of this Bannister:

Attachment 111226

Gare, I think you've well and truly bannistered this.
The trouble is I'm now more likely to believe the scam!

Acorn

Well, from Moderator to Moderator, let me put this to you:

Should we Ban(nister) this fellow, or
should we Bar(rister) them?

Or should I just start a new thread based on some of the junk mail I receive?

Attachment 111229

Let's flip a five million dollar coin and call it...

Love the pointing fingers, Gary!

Is that up on Creative Market?

Mike

Quote:

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Originally Posted by mwenz

Love the pointing fingers, Gary!

Is that up on Creative Market?

Mike

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Thanks, Mike, but no, the direction hands are not for sale on Creative Msrket as a model, because I relied heavily on some geometry straight out of Smith Micro's Poser software. The imagery itself is mine; the camera angle, lighting, the idea, the Photoshop work in post production.

It would make a swell poster, though, wouldn't it? A poster I could own.

I'm about halfway through building about a score or two of gears that actually can work together, as models for my Little Shoppe of Meshes. I've also had to rely on CorelDRAW a lot because Xara's Polygon tool, regardless of how many years I've asked for enhancements, produces limited, fairly static multi-sided shapes. I need to be able to edit a 12 point, or an 8 point polygon to produce stuff like this within my lifetime. none of these gears takes more than 5 minutes to make.

Attachment 111230

Am I being to subtle here in my request?

Attachment 111231

All I'm trying to do over there is to provide something a potential customer needs, probably can model themselves, but either doesn't have the time, or didn't think of the artistic treatment I use. Just simple, popular themes. That's why I keep the prices like ice cream in Alaska.

Attachment 111232

-g

Yes, it would make a wonderful poster. Which is how I envisioned using it. Don't know for whom or when other than myself, but the concept is great!

Mike, check your email in about 5 minutes (do we share a Dropbox?).

Call it a Christmas present, mate!

My Best,

Gary

Okay, back to on-topic: layouts. How do we feel about this one, given what I had to work with?

Attachment 111233

Choice of symmetry rather than asymmetry? Choice of fonts? Emphasis on what? Use of color/latex?

Oh, my Goodness,; just when I thought this thread was withering, I received an almost-perfectly designed email from...First National Bank. It took me a minute to Google the bank's location and lo and behold, it's in Africa, probably close to the Barrister's digs.

First, I received this nicely-typed letter, explaining that if I didn't kindly activate my ATM card—um, which I don't have—my card could be comprised. Now, I'm a PC-kinda guy and don't want an innocent card compromised, so perhaps I should open the attachment, eh?

Attachment 111500



Nahhh! See the typographic challenge here is: the choice of fonts. If you don't specify a font in email, you're sending what we call "Plain Text", there is no certainty that you message will arrive flush left, Fully Justified, or some font size you don't want.

Your document could be compromised, so any suggestions, such as using HTML formatting for the email, would be great here. Also the use of all caps 3/4 of the way through the message is just wrong. If the designer meant this to be the headline, it should be at the top of the layout, and perhaps a larger font size, right?

NOW, we're talking! The designer finally sent me a second email, with a positively knock-out layout:

Attachment 111501

I can see that this designer's company is serious about my business. And theirs, with those spiffy JPEG logos., first generation it looks like. I particularly like the section about eBucks, seeing as I have none, but the spirit of the message shouldn't be overlooked. Besides, 30,000eB must certainly amount to more than I currently have in my First National Bank account!

How do we feel about the first and second design?

Improvements? Any copywriting errors? Any copyrighting errors? Punctuation? Use of the Swiss Grid, as I taught in a Xara Xone tutorial?

C'mon, let's help this person out. They sent me two HTML attachments, and if we can't help them out with the message design, perhaps we can take a look at their website and do a little makeover, huh?

Attachment 111502

I'm feelin' a little jazzed today, because I got an email telling me that's I'm still the CEO of The Xara Xone (although Magix might not know about it), and I'm embroiled in a domain name brouhaha right now.


Attachment 111503

One of the layout problems I noticed is that there are "bad breaks" in the text, so that there is a lot of open and close quotes distracting from the message. Boy, these guys really want XARAXONE as a domain name, don't they? They tell us that our name here conflicts with their plans to register xaraxone.org.cn, xaraxone.ccn, xaraxone.asia..whew!...and probably xaraxone.xxx!

I see a bulleted list as a way to better organize this litany of domain names. Additionally, a nice design touch would be a handwritten signature from "Jim." Jim seems like a friendly and casual guy, no?

Anyhow, let's create a clean document that we're all chuffed about, and see if we can't give Jim some design ideas for the future websites. Me, I'd recommend beginning with Gotham, all fonts in the family, black text is always a good, forward-moving and powerful accent, and I think full justification will help eliminate some of the "rivers" in the text.

Let's go! Let's show how to design page layouts as the Pros do!

Attachment 111504

My Best,

Gary

Oh, Gosh...here we go again with boring, boring Letter Gothic monospaced, when a much more elegant and authoritative Times New Roman and Full Justification would get these people's message across better:

Attachment 111956

I don't know why it takes 105K to embed a virus in a PDF, but geez, these people prey their own, don't they? Acknowledging poverty and then zapping the Poor?

Maybe Comic Sans is more appropriate.

Opinions?

My Best,

Gary

OG RE: The Xara Xone, that was created by Arlin Bartch and Chris Dickman. I don't know if they ever copyrighted the name though.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by gwpriester

OG RE: The Xara Xone, that was created by Arlin Bartch and Chris Dickman. I don't know if they ever copyrighted the name though.

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Noted. However, today, registering a domain is 9/10th of the law. Anyone holding a domain that's a registered TM of someone else is just squatting. The example in post #22 is just from troll jerks who have done this to Kate and Barbara as well.

It'd be interesting to see if Arlin of Chris would want to arm-wrestle with Magix over the name, though, huh? :)

OoG-