 Can you imagine life today without...
No, we’re not going to say “the internet,” “mobile phones,” or “next-day free shipping.” Can you imagine life today without... rectangles? Stay with us on this. There’s a method to this seeming madness. Rectangles. Boy do we ever take them for granted. Sure, they’re the shape of buildings and Amazon boxes, but for the purposes of this discussion, they’re also, almost exclusively, the shape of the boundary in which you present creative materials to your audience. Think about it. Everything you must design for—everything your audience consumes—is bounded by a rectangle:
Need we go on? Fact is, from the days of the first framed canvas, creators have been creating within rectangles. Today, we take that for granted. But we shouldn’t. That’s because there’s an art to composing for rectangles, regardless of the medium. Since we’re so surrounded by rectangles, you’d think that 1) everyone was aware of this fact, and 2) everyone intuitively knows how to compose for them. Both of those assumptions, clearly, are wrong. Thus this article... thus the need for this article. Know the rules before you break them “Composition,” in this context, means “where you put things inside that rectangle.” And three classic rules of composition come to mind, which have evolved over the years: 1. The Rule of Thirds. You’ll see this one in every photography textbook ever printed. It basically divides a rectangle into a tic-tac-toe board, and tells you that you should place your subject at any of those intersections. Why? Well, this rule will tell you that most people’s instinctive response to framing a subject in the viewfinder would be to center them. Put their face right in the middle, equidistant between left and right, and top and bottom. Therefore, putting them where they’re about a third of the way across (and/or down) will look more pleasing to the eye, less “mug shot-ish”/less “deer in the headlights.” 2. Leading space. You’ve got a composition of a person looking off into the distance. How do you frame that? This rule tells you to give them “breathing space.” That is, if they’re looking off to the right, you should park them toward the left of the frame (a third of the way from the left border, if you’re also following the Rule of Thirds). This way, there’s room for your eye to go where their eyes lead you. It’s a nice place to park, say, a headline. Look at any stock-photo website; you’ll see tons of photos framed like this, for that exact reason. Leading space creates comfort. It respects the subject. It provides balance. (If you’ve read any of these articles from Copel Communications before, you so know that all of this is a set-up!) 3. Bounded/unbounded composition. This is one of the basic tenets of photojournalism. It asks you to make a choice. Do you want to show the entire subject within the frame? Or would you prefer to show just a portion of it, letting the rest bleed out of the picture? The former “bounds” the subject, and tells the viewer: “Here’s the entire story.” The latter “unbounds” the subject, and tells the viewer: “This is just a part of the story. It’s bigger than the portion you’re seeing here.” So following this rule will make “bounded” subjects stand alone, whereas, say, an “unbounded” crowd scene (or, say, cemetery) may appear to stretch for miles—when, in fact, it may only extend a few inches beyond where the photographer chose to frame it. Breaking the rules As always, you have to know the rules before you break them. Which is why we took the time to define each of the three rules above. These rules didn’t just appear out of the blue. They evolved. They withstand the test of time. They serve a very good purpose. Most of the time, you’re best off following them. But sometimes you’re not. 1. Breaking the Rule of Thirds. Sometimes, you’ll want your subject to be pegged like a deer-in-headlights. You’ll want them to look uncomfortable. Or you’ll want absolutely perfect, anal rigor to your composition. Those are perfect times to break the Rule of Thirds. 2. Breaking the leading-space rule. This one’s even more fun to break. Picture this: Your subject is peering off, intently, to the right. What happens if you park them at the very far right side of the frame, leaving a ton of empty space to their left? Bingo: You’ve created tension, and suspense. Tension, because the audience can’t see what your subject is looking at, when they're inured to just seeing it. And suspense, because what’s about to come up behind them? This type of composition is routinely used in horror movies. Want to see one of the best-ever usages of “invading what seems to be safe negative space”? Just watch the first appearance of the shark in the movie Jaws. You’ll see. 3. Breaking the bounded/unbounded composition rule. This one is a no-brainer. You can make a crowd look smaller simply by showing its edges. You can make a sole subject seem bigger than life by having it break the bounds of the frame. It’s entirely up to you. The key thing is to always know that this tool is in your kit, and to employ it judiciously. Get help We know about these rules—and how to break them—because we employ them—and break them—all the time on our clients’ behalf. If you need help with that next creative assignment, contact us. We’d be delighted to help.
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 Keep that pipeline replenished
Ordinarily we equate September with back-to-school. That may get cramped by social-distancing and/or Zoom classrooms, but the need to keep current—especially if you’re in the professional-services business—is ongoing. Let’s call it the continuing challenge of continuing education. In this article, we’ll review the “why,” the “what,” and the “how.” Let’s not waste time: The “why” is hugely important. Why continuing ed is vital It’s not degrees. Or awards. Or certificates. Or accreditations. It’s income. Simple as that. Put it the other way: If you can get by, and keep current, and prosper, without continuing education, then by all means, do so. Because education is an investment. And you want ROI. Thing is, no one can keep current, and properly prosper, without continuing education. Know why? Things change. It’s the entropy of business. If you don’t keep up, it’s your loss, quite literally. Think of the common business metaphors you often hear:
Need we go on? If there’s one thought that encapsulates this—if there’s one takeaway in this article that should motivate you—it’s this:
If that doesn’t make your blood chill, then nothing will. Let’s be more specific. What, exactly, changes? What do you need to learn about? Here are some examples:
At this point, you should rightly be wondering: “But how does all of this pertain to education? This goes way beyond what you learn in school.” Bingo. You’re on the right track already. A not-so-tangential tangent: Back when scientists were first measuring the speed of light, they encountered a puzzling phenomenon. No matter what the speed of the observer, the speed of light was always measured as a constant. Think about that, and it makes no sense. If you see a car approach you at 50 mph, that’s one thing. But if you’re also racing toward it at 50 mph, then, clearly, your rate of closure—the apparent speed of the approaching car—is 100 mph. But light didn’t behave like a car. No matter how they measured it, the scientists always came back with the same speed. What were they doing wrong? Turns out that they weren’t measuring anything wrong. Their measurements, to the contrary, were quite accurate. But these brilliant scientists were thinking wrong. And it took an even-more brilliant scientist—yep, Albert Einstein—to realize that in the classic “speed” definition of “distance over time,” the variable here wasn’t distance, but rather time. He figured out that time changes. So the speed of light seems the same. Conceptually, it’s very simple: If one of the two variables isn’t changing, then the other must. But no one, before Einstein, could wrap their heads around it. It was this germ—this passel of head-scratching experimental data about the speed of light—that led to his immortal Theory of Relativity. In other words, he asked the question that no one else was asking. To return to our thread: There is a certain Einsteinian logic to your question about continuing ed. That question about “what they teach in school.” Think big(ger) Yes, you can certainly go (back) to school for your continuing ed. Colleges these days, given the drought of students in the wake of Covid-19, would be more than happy to accept your tuition. And it needn’t be on-campus or even in-person; virtual learning is one of the biggest beneficiaries of the pandemic, along with tech enablers like Zoom and GoToMeeting. So you could do that. But can you sense our, um, indifference toward this topic? There are so many more opportunities available to you these days. And so many of them are richer, cheaper (free, even), faster, more efficient, and infinitely more fun. Now, we can’t narrow this article to your one specific field of professional-service consulting. But we work with enough consultants to know “the usual suspects” when it comes to ongoing educational opportunities:
Those are obvious. We’re also somewhat wary of professional associations—specifically, the ones that are more interested in your dues than delivering value. How much are they charging you, each year, to tack a few letters after your name? Do your clients, um, care? The important question—think like Einstein!—is “Am I gaining new insights that help me grow my business right now?” That’s a good litmus test. Through the looking glass, down the rabbit hole So there’s traditional education. There’s professional societies. Fine. But the interesting, third, often-overlooked category is what we’d call “nontraditional education.” And it’s where you’ll find the answers to some of the thorniest questions. It’s where you’ll gain peer-around-the-corner insights that will impress your clients, and entice prospects to sign on. The fun thing about this third category is that it’s, well, fun. Think about stuff you do when you’re not working, but should be. You might read the news. Watch a TV show. Read a book. Spend time on a social platform. Write in a journal. Do a crossword. Binge on YouTube. Guess what? There are continuing-education iterations of every item on that list. Don’t believe us?
Get help We know about these continuing-ed tricks, because we practice what we preach. A lot of it is in-going attitude. If you approach it like a chore, it will be. If you come at it like it’s something you shouldn’t be doing—like it’s self-indulgent goofing off—you’ll have more fun, and end up learning more. That said, you can also avail yourself to other resources. Like us. Like you, we strive to keep current, because it equips us to help you with your marketing and communications challenges. Contact us today to learn more. |