Setting the tone

I was up in Aberdeen on Friday, seeing a new client (thanks Miles). I'm writing their website, so the first thing we had to do was work through their draft site plan. It was really pretty good - but a lot of the content was buried, something we've now sorted.

But the most interesting thing was discussing tone of voice. We've got some nifty data on the target market, so we know what media they buy. On the way home, I picked up an armful of magazines and started looking for little tricks we can use on the site.

Is this stealing? No - far from it. The idea is to create a tone that's 100 per cent original, but sits in the context of what people are used to. It's a bit like a mood board, but for words. Try it.