Designer Tip #1: Put Together A Professional Proposal

Did you know that Jane Austen’s beloved novel Pride & Prejudice was originally titled First Impressions? While far less catchy than the title that eventually supplanted it, it will serve us well as a useful illustration.

I bring it up for two reasons. First, as a working title First Impressions is actually an accurate representation of the book’s most fundamental thematic premise: first impressions can lie. Which brings me to the second point—First Impressions, as a title, gives a pretty bad first impression.

On a literary plane, the reasons why Pride & Prejudice is a far superior title are manifold; alliteration, iambic syllabic pattern, specific embodiment of the thematic premise, and I could go on. (Pardon the momentary lapse into geekiness.) The summary is that the final title, the one which has gone down in the annals of human history, is prettier. More elegant. More fun to say. More specific, as I said above. The same goes for knit/crochet pattern proposals.

Why Are Proposals Such a Big Deal?

The title change from First Impressions to Pride & Prejudice did not change the actual content of the book; in the same way, putting together a professional design proposal doesn’t change the design. It may change the information you choose to include about the design and about yourself (more on that below), but the design remains the same. But the more neat, accessible, and engaging the layout, the fewer distractions exist that could potentially be off-putting to the reader. And the fewer distractions, the more of their brain cells can be devoted to perceiving what your design has to offer. In other words, it isn’t only what you say—it’s how you say it.

Brevity is the Soul of Wit

First of all, keep it to one page. Most publishers/yarn companies will explicitly state this anyway, but it’s worth saying again. In her free course on Designer Process (which I highly recommend), Tabetha Hedrick, design director for SweetGeorgia Yarns, says that she frequently receives multiple-page submissions even though SweetGeorgia requests single-page proposals. She goes on to explain that this is often because information not directly related to the design has been put into the proposal, such as enormous designer bios. When information is split onto multiple pages, not only does this make the read-through process much longer for the prospective publisher, but if they print out their proposals there is a risk that pages (and thus information) will become separated.

Not the desired effect, is it?

What Should I Say?

Always be sure to include all the information requested by the publisher; they have reasons for everything they ask for, and if any of them are left out they may automatically reject your proposal—most don’t have the time to chase down loose ends, even if your design concept appeals to them.

Usually the requested information includes, at a minimum: swatch/finished object photo, sketch (in some cases; more on that below), project description, construction notes and possibly romance copy, measurements/sizes included, yarn requirements, designer bio, and contact info. Check each individual call for submissions (or company requirements, if you’re applying for yarn support) carefully for any additional informational needs.

This is one of the first proposals I ever put together, some number of years ago. It contains the bare minimum of information and theoretically meets all the requirements above.

But notice the details: there’s a swatch and a few construction notes but no sketch, so the reader is left to put two and two together and hopefully conjecture about what the finished object may or may not look like. Will the butterflies continue across the back of the ankle, or are they just on the front of the sock? How tall will the ankle be? What kind of heel will it have? There’s no specific sizing information, only the vague denotation “Women’s Medium”, which can depend a lot, since feet don’t necessarily fit into a nice categorized sizing scheme of XS, S, M, etc. Because there’s no specific sizing, the yardage is at best a ballpark number (one ball of the suggested yarn). The viewer is left uncertain whether I have done my math, or whether I even am certain that this design is possible.

Here’s a slightly later proposal with more detailed information.

The construction notes give more detail into how the object is constructed. The sketch shows generally how the swatched stitch pattern(s) will fit into the finished object. The exact measurements enable a more precise yardage estimate (and show that I’ve done the calculations to make sure this design is possible).

Is it a perfect proposal? Nope. I could still give more detail (and instill more confidence in the reader). Why was this particular yarn chosen for the design? How does the design fit with the theme of the submission call (don’t go overboard with this, however; this will be addressed in a future post). But overall, the information presented meets the requirements in an effective way.

Once we know what to say, how do we say it?

Catching Bees with Honey

Visually the examples from above aren’t dreadful; in fact, to most eyes not trained in graphic design, they’re quite serviceable.

In retrospect, there are several problems with this essentially functional proposal. You can’t tell from the image, but the document that I submitted was 14″ wide by 9″ tall, significantly larger than the standard 11″ by 8.5″ letter-size piece of paper. I assumed that the document would be viewed electronically, not knowing that many companies prefer to print their proposals so that, among other things, they can view all the proposals side-by-side all at once. The dimensions alone would have been an inconvenience (aka a deterrent) to a prospective publisher even being able to view it.

Now with all that space comes the need to fill it with something. The title font is Harrington 75 pt, while the body is Garamond 18 pt. To give you an idea, most professionally-typeset books are set at 10-11 pt. 18 pt is large enough to betray itself as an attempt to fill up excess space; 75 pt is large enough to bean someone over the head with. In addition, the blank space (white space, in graphic design terms; it’s called white space even if it isn’t actually white) is scattered in disorganized pockets all over the page, causing the eye to bounce around the document at random. This causes a nearly automatic psychological response in the viewer that can be literally translated as, “Chaos!”.

The same basic criticisms could be given of the second example. This one is 14″ wide by a whopping 11″ tall; the heading font is Almendra Bold 66 pt and the body is Garamond 18 pt. In addition, to two images are placed in somewhat random relation to each other—they neither are separate or clearly mean to align; this in turn makes the arrangement of the various paragraphs wonky and misaligned as well. Also the sketch image is obviously a poorly-lit photo of a drawing, which gives it an clumsy look.

But what if the same information, the same colors, and the same fonts were reorganized?

Behold!

This revamped proposal is standard letter size (11″ by 8.5″) with margins of 0.75″. The title font is now 40 pt and the body font is 12 pt, so that the reader viewing it at full size no longer feels as if the words are screaming at them. The text has been placed in small, logical chunks under quickly readable headings, making the information more appealing and less overwhelming. The words pop against the background and the all-important swatch photo is larger.

But wait! There’s more!

All of the same adjustments of size, contrast, and alignment were made to this proposal in a matter of minutes. The sketch photo was digitized by simply turning up both the exposure, which makes the light areas in the photo whiter, and the black point, which makes the dark areas blacker; now the sketch appears to have been drawn directly on the proposal page. (Kristen TenDyke suggested this method in one of her blog posts, and it has instantly transformed my proposals.)

Now it’s worth noting that not every proposal needs a sketch. While I now make it my policy to include one in every proposal, just to eliminate ambiguity, I’ve had success with proposals that didn’t have a sketch. This is usually 1) in a case where there’s no shaping and the construction is straightforward, as with my Facets Cowl:

Or, 2) I made an entire sample to photograph for the proposal. I don’t usually do this, as it can be a time-dump, but occasionally it pays off, as with my Fenestra Shawl:

Update: I have been told that some companies who print out the submissions they receive prefer dark text on a light background, as opposed to white text on a colored background, as this saves ink and is easier to read. Keep this in mind when creating your proposals.

How to Get There

While I’ve delved a bit into the rationale behind my design decisions when making changes to the two examples above, it’s too much to get into in a blog post; below are some of my favorite resources for creating proposals, or the myriad of other documents or graphics a knit/crochet designer may have to create—like self-published patterns, ads, banners, logos, and more.

All of the most fundamental things I’ve ever learned about graphic design came from The Non-Designer’s Design Book by Robin Williams (not the actor); it’s an inexpensive book and an easy read, as it’s directed at those with no design background whatsoever. She goes over four basic principles of design and how to implement them through hundreds of examples in a variety of styles; there’s also an invaluable section on typography and fonts. All of the concepts are applicable to any project and will serve any indie designer well. If you’re going to study anything about graphic design, get this book.

Then of course there are a number of software programs that can be used to lay out a proposal; my advice is to stay away from word processing applications like Word or Google Docs. While these are great for what they were designed to do (type words), they severely limit your design and layout possibilities. The most popular and most versatile design software package out there is Adobe’s Design Suite, which includes the famous InDesign as well as many features that the average knit/crochet designer most likely will not use; it’s also a fabulously expensive subscription service, most likely not feasible for a startup knit/crochet business. It may be more efficient (and affordable) to consider a page layout application instead. Personally I use PagePlus X9; it’s less flexible than a design suite but still highly functional, and pretty much anything I can think of that a pattern designer would need to create can be made in it. And because it’s an older software (albeit one with a proven track record), I snagged a one-time download for $25. It’s one of the best $25 purchases I’ve ever made.

In Conclusion

Never underestimate the power of order, purposefulness, and beauty, especially in a business like pattern design that relies on all three of those things for its existence. And unlike most marriage proposals, a design proposal is almost always the first thing your publisher sees about you and what you do; don’t waste it.

In short, aren’t you glad Jane Austen changed her book title to Pride & Prejudice?

Have questions about any of the concepts covered in this post? Have a design question you’d like to have answered? Leave it in the comments below—I can’t wait to hear from you!