Michael Klein and Kristi Shackelford’s article on document design titled “Beyond Black on White: Document Design and Formatting in the Writing Classroom” explores the idea of formatting your writing. They express that good document design merges the words on the page with imagery to further illustrate your meaning. Formatting is important when writing a paper because the words you write influence the way your audience interpret your ideas; if the objective of writing is to communication an idea, then the way you present your thoughts is important.
As a writer, formatting’s something I think about constantly. Especially when it comes to journaling. Recently, I’ve been getting into the idea of keeping a commonplace journal which is a place for you to collect your thoughts, ideas, and stuff like that yet have always been intimidated by the idea of keeping a journal. I would always see people showing off either a neat yet messy journal or a extremely put together, organized journal. Neither of them really stood out of me. I didn’t want to have six journals for six different things, I wanted my MAIN book. A book that I’d be able to look back on later down the line—which leads me to commonplace journals. I like the idea of having this book full of my thoughts and ideas for whatever I’m thinking of putting into action and it makes me feel really complete as a creative. It’s a place where I don’t have to think about formatting but instead throw all my thoughts into this leather Moleskine I brought at the bookstore.
I’ve always envied those artists/authors who kept a journal to track their progress or use as a brain dump. It must be really fulfilling to be able to open it in like two years and think “Hey…I remember this.” I don’t know. I think I have this weird appreciation for it having an unorganized place for my unorganized thoughts.
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