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- Annual Reports
- Directories
- The Theatre Listing 2002 for the Professional Association of Canadian Theatres
- 1999 Membership Directory for the Advertising & Design Club of Canada
- Travel Catalogues
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Cunard Catalogue, 1998
Expeditions Catalogue, 1999/2000 for Butterfield & Robinson
Expeditions Catalogue, 1998 for Butterfield & Robinson
Biking & Walking Catalogues, 1996, 1997, 1998 for Butterfield & Robinson
- Books
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The Story of Sony in Canada
The Canadian Global Almanac, 1993
- Databases
- Award-Winners, 1948-98 for the Advertising & Design Club of Canada
Annual Reports
Since 1993 I've worked on more than 150 English annual reports and the French versions of nearly 50 of them. They include the annuals of almost 60 companies (for example, Canadian Tire, Toronto Hydro, Imperial Oil, Wescast Industries and TD Mutual Funds), and were produced by design firms such as Ove Design & Communications, Tudhope Associates (now Interbrand) and Soapbox Design Communications.
Editorial Challenges
- A typical annual report proofreading job consists of a very careful and detailed reading of the final or almost-final version. I look not only for the obvious missing words and spelling mistakes, but also for more subtle problems:
- Does the copy refer to "the chart below" when the chart is on the previous page?
- Is the division they sold referred to somewhere as if they still own it?
- Is the vice-president's name spelled three different ways?
- Is the hyphenation clumsy?
- Are the columns of figures perfectly aligned?
- An increasingly popular option is hiring me to edit the report, starting with the raw copy and reorganizing, rewriting and polishing it as required. This is a cost-effective solution for clients who know what they need to say, but need help to say it well.
- Copy editing an annual report includes correcting the spelling, grammar and punctuation, and preparing a list of the editorial choices; for example, Canadian or U.S. spelling, per cent or percent or whether or not to spell out numbers over 10. This style sheet could also include products, branch offices, executives' names and titles -- anything that could be treated inconsistently in a document that was probably produced by several different departments. (See a sample style sheet.)
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The Theatre Listing is an annual directory of Canadian theatre companies and facilities. PACT needed someone to manage every aspect of this project from research and editing to design and printing.
Editorial Challenges
- Prepared the initial mailing and handled hundreds of updates that arrived by mail, phone, fax and e-mail.
- Followed up on dozens of update submissions to clarify discrepancies, decipher handwriting, etc., in order to ensure the highest possible level of accuracy.
- Researched potential new listings and expanded the total entries by about 10 per cent.
- Reorganized the book to make it easier to use, and added detailed indexes and a glossary of abbreviations.
- Redesigned the book to make it easier to read and to reduce production costs.
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This first-ever directory included detailed listings for over 300 professional members; information on benefits and bylaws; and a reference section listing organizations, competitions, publications, schools, museums and bookstores.
Editorial Challenges
- Exported all of the raw information from the club's database in FileMaker.
- Organized, copy edited and prepared text files to import into QuarkXPress.
- Researched and wrote copy on the history of the club and the Les Usherwood Award, and sidebars with tips on finding information about postal regulations, package labelling and taxes.
- Proofread thoroughly at every stage.
- Compiled an index listing every member by both surname and company name.
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Cunard Catalogue, 1998
Created by Viva Dolan Communications and Design
This 184-page catalogue was a complex but elegant guide to the cruises available on the Queen Elizabeth 2 and four other ships operated by Cunard. It included more than 100 itineraries (each listing daily destinations and arrival and departure times), nine pages of tables showing fares and full-year sailing schedules, and almost 70 maps.
Editorial Challenges
- Extracted the information necessary to build the catalogue from an 18-inch stack of assorted documents that arrived from Cunard.
- Researched and prepared a thorough, accurate list of the hundreds of places mentioned in the catalogue and appearing on the maps.
- Meticulously labelled the maps to meet the high standards of Cunard's marine engineering department.
- Located archival photos of shipboard life and negotiated usage terms with the University of Liverpool and the Ocean Liner Museum.
- Proofread endlessly to ensure that all dates, prices and maps were correct. (Cunard's marketing manager said she had never seen such a high level of accuracy.)
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To promote 10 of the more adventurous hiking and biking trips, the client chose a theme of great explorations for this 32-page brochure.
Editorial Challenges
- Researched the exploration history of each destination.
- Located and obtained archival photographs for the art director's consideration, including hundreds of 19th- and 20th-century images from the National Geographic Society in Washington and the Royal Geographic Society in London, and negotiated fees for all photos.
- Briefed an illustrator commissioned to produce original watercolour maps and worked with him to ensure their accuracy.
- Prepared detailed notes for the copywriter about hotels and special shopping and dining opportunities to be highlighted.
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A brochure in the form of an 80-page magazine, it focused on the less traditional B&R hiking and biking trips. The client later said of my work, "She made every page better."
Editorial Challenges
- Coordinated copy from a variety of sources -- drafts of articles from B&R guides, letters from customers and press coverage from actual magazines, along with work by professional writers.
- Wrote, rewrote and/or edited features, sidebars, itineraries, columns, contributor biographies, decks and pull quotes.
- Copy edited and proofread every page at every stage, ensuring accurate and consistent spelling throughout and the best possible typography.
- Edited and rewrote to fit to accommodate frequent layout changes.
- Oversaw final production and approved pages released for film.
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These award-winning travel catalogues describe tours on six continents for an upscale, worldwide clientele. The 64-page 1998 biking catalogue showcased 38 trips and included 40 maps.
Editorial Challenges
- Made sure that the maps accurately represented the trips described in the copy, which required double-checking map markup against the logistics of the trip described in the copy.
- Ensured that any itineraries, maps, descriptions or trip details appearing in both the biking and walking books were consistent and that frequent price and route changes were incorporated accurately.
- Carefully researched and developed both a basic spelling style list of more than 1,000 terms including foreign phrases, wines and international foods, and another list of more than 1,000 names of towns, villages, rivers, islands, archaeological sites and museums mentioned in the catalogues.
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This 56-page corporate history, produced in both English and French, showed the development of the company in Canada in parallel with a timeline of events in Canadian popular culture over the same period.
Editorial Challenges
- Research included:
- searching for all references to Sony Canada and its predecessors in newspapers and magazines from the 1950s on;
- tracking down an out-of-print autobiography of the founder;
- locating copies of relevant annual reports; and
- obtaining archived economic data from Statistics Canada.
- Production editing required copy editing; proofreading and typographic fine-tuning; fact-checking; preparing credits and acknowledgments; and ensuring that all references to dates were consistent throughout the body of the book, the captions and the timeline.
- Located and arranged fees and permissions for dozens of photos, including:
- the first Ski-Doo (from the Bombardier museum);
- the opening of the Toronto subway (from the City of Toronto archives);
- Wayne and Shuster (from the CBC);
- construction of the CN Tower (from The Toronto Sun);
- Marc Garneau (from the Canadian Space Agency); and
- Paul Henderson after his famous 1972 goal (from the photographer himself).
- Designed a database to track the images used -- source, format, credit copy, production status, return instructions, etc.
- Coordinated French translation, sending each version of the book to the translator with appropriate notes, ensuring that the French reflected every change made in the English book and proofreading all French corrections.
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This annual reference book consisted of 728 pages of information about Canadian and international history, geography, politics, economics, sports and entertainment.
Editorial Challenges
- Researched and fact-checked much of the book, including the sports, geography and economics sections.
- As arts and entertainment editor, added more Canadian information, such as the Canadian Music Video Awards, Canadian Country Music Association Awards and National Magazine Awards, along with directories of Canadian museums, galleries, orchestras and theatre and dance companies.
- Coordinated the flow of work among researchers, editors, production artists and typesetters.
- Created a database to track the research, editorial and production status of each table, list and essay.
- Copy edited and proofread the entire book.
- Wrote an editorial style guide for future editions, establishing the spelling and abbreviation choices and typographic conventions to follow.
MACMILLAN CANADA | TOP OF PAGE
To help prepare for their 50th-anniversary exhibit at the Royal Ontario Museum, I created a database to list every award-winner in the club's history. It started with a simple question ("Could you just type up a list of the winners?") and grew to a file that included hundreds of projects.
This database provided a guide for the search for pieces that were eventually added to the ROM's permanent collection, over 180 of which appeared in the 1999 show. According to the president, "Your database is the keystone to all the work that follows. …without your database, it would have been impossible to even collect the work."
Editorial Challenges
- Checked each page of each awards annual from the club's history to carefully build a list of all of the winners in FileMaker.
- Designed a database simple enough for a variety of users, but sophisticated enough to do the job.
- Set up the database to be searched by year, name of winner, name of studio or agency, name of client, category of work (design, illustration, etc.) or category of award (merit, gold, silver, etc.).
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