I have loved Fast Company for at least 20 years. It’s sort of a “new economy” business magazine, but it’s actually more about ideas and people than it is about business, industry, or technology. I cited an old Fast Company profile on an über-productive inventor/creator in one of my (very) previous posts on creativity, in fact. (See my post, “Creativity, Mr. Patent, Keith Richards, and me” HERE. See the original Fast Company article, “Mr. Patent,” HERE.)
Lately, with our department’s program switch from the Technical Communication major to its new User Experience and Communication Design (UXCD) major, I’ve been following/reading Fast Company’s design magazine online, Co.Design. I like it for its very wide-ranging take on what “design” is, and if you like to think about “creativity” or “creative thinking,” you would really love Co.Design, too.
Digression: Have you noticed that a magazine in its online form usually DOESN’T have italicized titles when people write about it? Like it’s a “place” more than a “text”? So I may switch back and forth on such items in my blog; if I do, you’ll know that’s why and let me slide. (Right? 🙂 )
So anyway, the point of today’s post (finally!): Co.Design has a list of super cool and mostly reasonably priced gifts that you can buy now at the last minute from Amazon. Link to that article/list HERE if you’re interested.
My favorite suggestion? Never Use Futura, by Douglas Thomas, which costs just over $16. A “must” for font geeks! And anyone else who is curious and welcomes new creative insights.
Katherine Wikoff 
Hey Katherine! I actually stumbled on your post on grammar, punctuation and mechanics when googling a definition of terms for a style guide! Just wondering if the term you use, ‘mechanics’, would also work in British English? I’m looking for the correct way to structure various topics in a guide for a European client and was considering having spelling and grammar as separate entries, but not sure if that is the way to go…
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Wow, I don’t know if “mechanics” is a term you’d find in British English. Good question. Definitely spelling and grammar would be separate entries because spelling isn’t really “grammar” in the way that grammar refers to the organization of ideas into sentence structures. You could safely describe “spelling” as “mechanics,” although I wouldn’t create a separate “mechanics” category unless you were intending to add other “mechanics” items.
Here’s a thought. If you wanted to make sure that British English uses “mechanics” to refer to spelling and other conventions, you might want to look up that word in the Oxford English Dictionary. I’m at work and ironically don’t have access to the OED at the moment. I’ll check at home tomorrow (late dinner with a faculty job candidate tonight). Meanwhile, if you’re in a hurry, you could look up “mechanics” in the OED yourself. I figure if the OED includes a definition of “mechanics” that fits with mine, then since that dictionary is published in Britain, its definition of “mechanics” would apply to British English as well as American. Of course, there will probably be like 17 other definitions of “mechanics” to wade through before you find the one relevant to our discussion. (Hope my wordy answer makes sense!)
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Thanks for your thoughtful answer! In the meantime I did a little digging and concluded that, while the term seems to be generally used in the UK, along with that of ‘conventions’, it is probably too ‘academic’ for the purposes of the guide. Many non-native speakers will be using it, so simple will be best. Therefore, I’ll probably use separate entries for key things like spelling, etc and not regroup them under a category of ‘mechanics’ as I’d originally considered. Thanks for your insight!
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You’re welcome!
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