One of the first projects I ever completed as a designer was a menu for a small Italian restaurant. The menu looked great and I got almost everything right. After the menus were printed, a customer pointed out that the soft drinks included Coke, Sprite and Root Beef. That’s right, I totally messed up one letter!

Now of course this particular error wouldn’t have been caught by a spell checker even if they had been available in most software back in 1990. Sometimes you just need an extra set of eyes to look over your work. If you aren’t good at catching these errors, make sure you have a trusted friend or colleague double-check your work to avoid an embarrassing error.

One type of design is often littered with errors and that is those dreaded spam e-mails. I got one the other day from a supposed law firm with the subject line of “Evition Notice”. First and foremost, I wouldn’t have any idea who would be evicting me from anything. But I also know a real law firm would at the very least get the most important word spelled right. Of course they would also include the address of the property in the e-mail. So don’t be like a spammer and get stuff wrong!

The last error I’ll point out was in a graphic added to a custom Web page someone had created for someone I am helping. I’ve cropped down the graphic to just the typo as I am not trying to upset the person who made the typo. I just want all of you to understand that it is really easy for any of us to make mistakes. Hopefully these examples have emphasized the importance of checking your work an extra time or two to catch as many mistakes as possible.