DIY PR by Penny Haywood Calder

We all have times when we get stuck for a good picture to liven up our marketing materials, our website, blog or presentation slides. Especially if the idea we want to get across is abstract, or you want to talk about an intangible service.

Cue the rather lovely Wordle (http://wordle.net). Wordle takes your words and transforms them into art.

And that's art you can use to make something tangible to sell. Cards, T-shirts, you name it....

You've probably seen word clouds on blogs or presentations - where words are displayed by size, the largest being the most frequently used (ignoring very common words). Wordle takes the word cloud a step further and turns it into art, by arranging the words in all sorts of directions, fonts and colours. And you can play about with the mix to create unique Wordles.

Interesting graphics from alphabet letters are bang on trend just now. And you are free to use the Wordles you create for commercial purposes, but there are some caveats. Do check out the conditions of use at wordle.net/faq regarding attributing Wordle. It's clearly and concisely explained. Since the application was created by an IBM employee on that company's time, it would probably be wise to stick to the ground-rules, which, in my opinion, are pretty generous for such a fabbie tool that you can use commercially.

Labels: commercial art, computeractive, intangible, Labels: cnet, on trend, picture, visual ideas, word cloud, Wordle, words into pictures