Editorial

They say all good things must come to an end, friends, and as it turns out, that time has come for Nyman Ink. After countless newsletters, websites, brochures and fundraising campaigns (not to mention all the other stuff we’ve done), more than 60 awards and a full 22 years in business, we’re creatively exhausted and ready for a break. Two decades is a long time to keep going at full speed, and while we’ve loved every minute of it, we think it’s time to give it a rest.

Nyman Ink’s doors will officially close on Friday, August 31, 2012. In the meantime, we’ll be wrapping up our final projects and tying up loose ends.

But, fear not. We don’t plan to leave you high and dry. Though our physical office will be no more, our website, www.nymanink.com, will remain up and running to allow you to keep accessing all of our free resources, from whitepapers to blog posts. And though we’re getting out the design and marketing biz, we know you’ll still need great marketing professionals to help you with your future communications needs. With that in mind, Judy Nyman, our founder and fearless leader, will also remain available in case you need a referral or have any questions. When the doors close, Judy will be reachable via email at jnyman [at] nymanink [dot] com and by phone at 416-587-5847.

We sincerely thank you for 22 wonderful years of business, friendship and referrals. We don’t know where we’ll end up next, but we wish you all the best of luck with your future businesses, ventures and plans.

It's been grand.

Sincerely,

Judy Nyman, Bonnie Jackson, Nicola McHughen, Jen Selk, Scott Hamel

The Team at Nyman Ink

P.S. For the time being, our blog, website and social media accounts will remain available online, but we will not be updating them.

Recently, Jen blogged about what visitors want to see on the homepage of your not-for-profit’s website. She told us about a great study that says that if you want to encourage donations, you need to be explicit about who you are and what you do. What better way to communicate this than through your not-for-profit’s mission statement?

Step one: You need to have a mission statement.

One of the catchwords of the last few years with regards to not-for-profits has been “transparency.” The government is looking for charities to be meticulous with their financial reporting (and who can blame them with continual reports about fraudulent charities?).  Financial information is also one of the two most significant pieces of information that donators want to see upfront on an organization’s website (the other being what the organization is all about).

Back in February, I wrote about Lake Superior State University’s annual list of words that should be banished from the English language (including “viral” and “BFF”).

I’ve always been a believer that the English language has too many words. After all, do we really need nine different words that essentially mean the same thing (think: huge, enormous, gigantic, colossal, vast, titanic, mammoth, grand and really, really big). While they each have sight variations in meaning, in a sentence they each basically mean the same thing (e.g., the iceberg was [fill in your word here]. See? So I’m always happy to banish a few words each year.

Lately, Nyman Ink has been receiving offers from guest bloggers. This is great in one sense – it means our blog is getting noticed and that’s a nice thing. Also, as the company’s (relatively) lone blogger, I admit to feeling a little blogging fatigue at times, and it would be nice to have some guest bloggers to take up the slack once in awhile.

Good infographics aren't exactly hard to find, but good ones about grammar don't come around very often. Today we are sharing the latest amusing, editing-focussed infographic from Copy Blogger.

It defines and warns of 15 common mistakes you may be making on a regular basis. Beware and be educated.

Today I'm going to take a page from Bonnie's book (Bonnie being our Editorial Director and resident grammarian) to talk to you about something that's been annoying me lately: contradictory descriptions.

Contrary descriptions, by which I mean incorrectly used adjectives and adverbs, seem to be everywhere lately, and they're driving me crazy.

Annual reports are something Nyman Ink knows a lot about. We've been commissioned to work on annual reports countless times over the past 20 or so years. They're one of our bread-and-butter specialties — one that has survived the big switch over from print to digital with few major changes.

These days, when we work on an annual report for a not-for-profit, we generally don't write original content, but rather edit the content supplied to us. And frankly, that makes perfect sense. You know your organization best, and you have the background information necessary to write a good annual report.

Unfortunately, that's not always what happens.

For the past 37 years, Lake Superior State University (LSSU) has released a List of Words Banished from the Queen's English for Misuse, Overuse and General Uselessness. I generally agree with the words, especially 2011’s “viral” and “BFF”, though I’m not sure I feel the same about “Facebook and Google as verbs” as “Google it” is a staple in my vocabulary. And the new top terrible word for 2012 is:

Amazing.

Does spelling still matter?

A teacher friend of mine told me about a new software program being used in the younger grades in her school. It's used to help with reading and writing, and provides a spell checker and word prediction. Instead of marvelling at this innovative technology, she actually lamented. She feared that instead of teaching the students to spell, it would just do the job for them. (And for those of us who have predictive text on our cell phones, we know this is a scary thing.) For years now, educators and their government counterparts have been promoting literacy with programs such as DEAR (Drop Everything and Read) and Family Literacy. But why learn how to spell when, truthfully, computers can do it for us, quicker and better?