A few summers ago, I decided to do something I’d always wanted to do: learn to play guitar. Luckily for me, my husband (a professional music teacher) was on hand when I had questions.

You love your new website. Really, really love it. You love it so much you want to base a targeted mailing piece on the graphic design. Or you want to create a leave-behind when making a sales call, and you need a sales sheet or brochure that reinforces your branding. With each, you want to create a specific message in print, and draw people back to your site.

Anyone who calls themselves a designer (or strives to be one) should know the basics of typography. Even if you’re not a designer, you may be asked to proof a letter, review a brochure, or make a design decision. Take your work to the next level by using  “smart” quotes—that is, quotation marks and apostrophes that are curly and point in the correct direction.

There’s color on your screen, color in your professionally printed brochure, color that comes from your desktop color printer. The problem is, the red you see on your screen almost never matches the red you print out of your printer, and the red you print out of your printer almost never matches the job once you get it professionally printed.