“Make it more professional.”
All right..... Which part?
The language? The length? The layout? The photograph? The amount of information?
Five people could follow that instruction carefully and return with five completely different versions.
Before asking for another revision, I would like to put an example on the table.
An adjective leaves a lot of work to the imagination
Professional. Strong. Elegant. Clear.
I use these words too. They are convenient.
But when we need to produce something together, I want to understand what they mean in this particular situation.
An elegant image might mean a restrained composition to one person and an elaborate setting to another.
A clear explanation might mean fewer words. It might also mean adding the one example that makes the subject understandable.
The word alone does not settle the choice.
An example gives us something we can examine.
Tell me which part you want me to notice
“This is what I mean.”
Useful. But I would go one step further.
What, exactly, should I notice?
Perhaps you like the space around the subject, but the colours are completely wrong for our project.
Perhaps the opening paragraph works because it immediately answers a practical question. The rest of the article may have nothing to do with what we need.
Without that explanation, the person receiving the example has another interpretation to make.
I prefer a more precise reference:
“Look at how quickly you can find the essential information here.”
Or:
“This image leaves room for the headline without covering the person.”
Now we have a feature to work with.
An example can start a better discussion
Sometimes the most useful response is disagreement.
“I understand why that works there. For our audience, I think we need something different.”
Excellent. We have reached a concrete choice.
We can discuss the audience, the purpose and the detail that needs changing.
That is a much more useful conversation than exchanging increasingly enthusiastic adjectives.
An example also makes it easier to discover that we were imagining different things from the beginning.
Finding that out early can save a remarkable number of versions called “final.”
Leave room for a new answer
I do not want every project to become a copy of a reference.
The example helps explain a requirement. The person doing the work still needs room to respond to the actual situation.
We can recognise what makes something effective and find another way to achieve it.
So when somebody asks me what I mean by “good,” I think that is a useful question.
I should be able to point to something, describe what matters and explain why.
For a practical example, here is how the destination of a photograph changes the way we plan it.
Silvia
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