Real proud of the visuals on this one. (And the copy ain’t bad either.)

See more here!

(Whether you should begin with the prequels or original triology is a whole other blog post.)

Luke is the good guy. We'll overlook the fact he kisses his sister.

The original Star Wars, A New Hope, is a classic story of good vs evil. We follow the quest of young Luke as he grows as a young man.  The end of the movie is an adrenaline rush as we watch Luke and the other pilots make the assault on the Death Star and blow it up.

Contrast this with the ending of Episode 1 The Phantom Menace. Who are we rooting for? Well to start with we have the froggish Jar Jar Binks leading the Gungans into battle against the Trade Federation battle droids.

Jar Jar Binks. George invented him so he could sell more birthday party favors to 5-year olds.

Then we have Princess Amidala  leading the capture of the palace.

Dames with guns are hot. Especially in Episode 2 where they wear ripped white spandex jumpsuits.

Anakin ends up in the sky and blows up the control ship thus disabling all the droids.

Can you really trust a kid who levitates fruit to impress a girl?

And finally, Qui-gon Jinn and Obi-wan Kenobi  battle Darth Maul.

Obi-wan twirls his lightsaber a lot.

Did you get that? Now imagine if this was a marketing campaign. With A New Hope, you can name who the hero is – Luke Skywalker.

Now quick, who’s the hero of the Phantom Menace?

If you stuff too many details in your messaging people end up remembering nothing.

Live long and prosper.

May the Force be with you.

What drives you as a designer? Fame, glory, money (not), the chance to influence people?

A couple of weeks ago I attended the AIGA San Diego 17th Annual Y Design Conference. The line up of speakers was fabulous. I was particularly charmed by Andrew Byrom who talked about how he financed some of his own projects.

You can find my account on Storify here.

The Realities of Working at Home from Anne McColl on Vimeo.

Yeah, as a freelance copywriter, I can work from home, but that’s not always the best option. That’s why I co-work with other folk.

Things have been a little quiet around here. This month I did a series of guest posts called Creative Conversation for the folks at Fandom Marketing.

My favorite posts was about Evian tweeting illustrations live from a food festival.

You can check out the entire series here.

All you need is words love. A copywriter’s guide to Valentine’s.

I’m usually not an inspirational quote type of gal, but these were some of the loveliest words I have read in a while. St. Francis via @dilworth designs.

As an interactive copywriter, I write the way people really talk. Here’s to plain simple English.