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Steta Publishers was a writing and brand language consultancy that ran from 2012 to 2016. We are no longer available for projects. Our founders now work here and here. 

Words With Friends

11/1/2016

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Picture
Urmilla invited me to a round of Words With Friends, and I found it quite addictive. The little yellow letters make cheerful, bouncy sounds when they move around. It’s fun to try different combinations of letters to see which words scores the most. Words With Friends is the app version of that good ol’ mind bender known as Scrabble. However, I think that the analog version of Scrabble, with its little square letters (lovely wooden ones if you have an old set), is more challenging, and here’s why.
 
Playing in real time. Your opponent/s sat with you, and you had to make sensible words in a limited time frame. With the app, you can take upto several days to decide what word you want to play.
 
Applying your own mental dictionary. While playing Scrabble, you had to have a good dictionary in your head, and you needed to know what words really qualified as words. If you were sharp, you could catch your opponent trying to pass off ‘xo’ as a word. Now, the app tells you if a word is acceptable or not.
 
Doing your own Math. When we played Scrabble, we had to mentally calculate the total number of points we would score. The app does it automatically now. So numerically challenged folks like me are getting even rustier at mental math.
 
Still, Words With Friends lets you play all the time, with friends on other continents. And you suddenly discover the very valuable role of vowels, and how often Q is followed by U. And wonder of wonders, you actually begin to realize that the game is as much about strategy as it is about words. 

By Armeen Kapadia
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Working on an Art Book Part III – Writing The Book

8/10/2014

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Previously, we talked about interviewing Himmat and crafting the content strategy. Here, we will share some thoughts on the actual writing process.

After you’ve created a piece of text, you’ve got to spend hours polishing it to perfection. It’s very helpful if someone else – ideally, a professional editor – does a thorough comb through it. Editors look at the overall flow and narrative of the text, and they also proofread.

Longer pieces of text need great attention spans. In this case we found that we had repeated certain ideas more than once across the text. This happens when you’re trying to make connections between the different aspects of a person’s life. But it’s annoying for a reader to get that ‘Didn’t I just read this somewhere?’ feeling. As with any piece of writing, a fresh pair of eyes notices a whole lot of new things.

Most text goes through several drafts before it is good enough to be shown to the world at large. Besides the crucial aspects of grammar, spelling, tense, consistency and so on, there are other more ambiguous issues at work, such as choice of words, active/passive voice, writing style, and sentence length and construction. Here are a few examples of things we mulled over.

High relief: Is it hyphenated or not? Since it was the title of the book, we had better be really sure!

Are walls ‘built’, ‘created’, or ‘constructed’? Since these were unique walls of art, we often used ‘created’.

An artist can conceptualise, imagine, dream, create, build, work, draw, paint and sculpt. Consider which is the most appropriate word for the context.

Each of the three high relief walls had a specific construction process. We had to understand this process in detail, and explain it to a reader. Technical processes have specific words that should not be replaced. For instance, cement is ‘cured’, bricks are ‘laid’, and wood is ‘seasoned’. A wall needs ‘reinforcement’ (not support).

The Acknowledgement section of the book looked deceptively simple to write. In fact, we agonized over it again and again. There is always the very real fear of leaving someone out. Then one has to consider the order in which to thank people. The main challenge is to make sure the acknowledgement is genuinely grateful, and not seemingly routine in any manner.

Though captions are just little sentences under images, they are very important. The caption has to make sense of the image. Vague captions are meaningless and useless. If a caption turns into a paragraph, it probably needs to move into the text itself.

There are countless issues when it comes to writing, but not to worry, we won’t go into all of them here! I can’t leave without saying one last thing. There is a certain thrill to see one’s writing in print. And when it is a book of this nature, the thrill is just so special. 

Armeen Kapadia
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Discovering the World of Printing – Half a Day at Pragati Printers

18/7/2014

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Recently, I had the privilege of visiting Pragati Offset Printers in connection with one of our projects — a book. Before I visited Pragati, I just knew two things about them — that they were the best in India and that they were in my city, Hyderabad. After I visited Pragati, I discovered the many reasons how they became the best in India and also why they will probably remain there. So, what really sets them apart? It’s one word, as you may have guessed, and it is Quality.

My co-worker on the project, a talented and thoughtful designer, travelled all the way from Jaipur to oversee the production of the book. He has been a Pragati enthusiast for years and it was difficult not to be bitten by the bug. In fact, thanks to him, I got a free tour of Pragati.

We moved quickly away from the well-lit, air conditioned front office and pre-production departments to check the progress of our own project at the printing department. It was a huge space — like a massive shed. It was dark and noisy. Machines hammered away their jobs rhythmically and alarms of various pitches went off from one machine or the other. Machine operators in teams of 5-7 went about their work with a sense of purpose. No air conditioning here and lighting just where it was needed. I reminded myself that this was the center of all the hard labor; this was where the actual job of offset printing was done.

My idea of a machine till then was a desktop computer. But these machines were giant machines — some running the length of a few hundred yards. Pragati has invested in cutting-edge printing machinery from Japan and this entire space is dedicated to Komori and Mitsibushi machines. Seeing these machines in action and seeing the results they produced, made me feel like a star. Get my autograph! I have seen the wonders they produce — works of art, nothing less. And then there are the men behind the machines. Cut to a snippet of conversation around the production of our book. There are a lot of pictures in our book – most of them black and white.

Designer colleague: The images are not there yet. I want some more warmth in these pictures. You understand?

Pragati staff 1: Yes, we can certainly rework these. I think we may get better results if we increase the amount of yellow a bit and also mellow the cyan a notch.

Self: (Thinking): Warmth in a black and white picture? Sure. I know exactly what you mean. Yellow and cyan in that picture over there? It may seem odd to you, but I see only black, white, and few shades of grey!

After more than an hour of trying to get warmth into the black and white images, we have a few prints to compare. By this time, there are at least 6 of the best brains in printing at our workspace, helping us make up our mind. They are trying to make sense of which greys are warm. There’s some sort of deadlock. Designer colleague is sticking to his guns that the output can be bettered. I keep nodding my head, not very convincingly, I am afraid. I found all the prints to be more or less the same. Thank God I did not attempt to become a designer, ever. Then something interesting happens. One of the Pragati staff says it is best to compare in daylight. We are in a dark space, remember? All of us troop out into the daylight with these huge sheets of paper. Then they start the discussion all over again. It was interesting to see all these men haggle over the many shades of grey. If you think men don’t have a sense of color, think again. I’m told there were a few hundred other issues that had to be sorted out — from the binding to the front cover of the book and from the embossing on the front cover to the details on the back cover of the book. Eventually, all things were sorted out and the book went to print.

Whether in the pre-production department, the production or printing department, or the post production departments such as packaging and binding, each and every employee wears the Quality badge like a badge of honor. Each one whom I listened to, and each one whom I saw at work, worked with a commitment and a zeal that was almost infectious. It almost seemed that each department was waiting to spot a snag that the previous department in the chain of production overlooked. But most of all what was truly amazing is the willingness of the staff to satisfy the customer. No compromise.

Urmilla Chandran
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    Authors

    Steta's founders, Urmilla Chandran and Armeen Kapadia author this blog. 

    We love letting our thoughts (crazy, stupid or smart) out for some fresh air.


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