Sheffield City Council:
M and M Sport:
2.2 Use of Fonts.
The first invoice that I am going to look at is the one from the Sheffield City Council.
The font that is used is used throughout the entire document. The font that is used is Arial. The areas of the invoice which are meant for the customer are in capitals. The description which the organisation wants the customer to read first is in capitals. It is made so that the bits of the invoice that are important and need to be read stand out more than the rest of it. When you look at it you get drawn to the areas where the font is capital rather than the areas where the font is regular.
Like this invoice, the M and M sports one also uses the Arial font with a capital style. It differs however, as it only uses the capital style on the section that is naming the products that have been bought. It also uses the bold style to draw the attention of its reader to the list of products and the total. This organisation chooses to bring more attention to the total of the purchase. The text used is larger than that of the rest of the document. The text is white on a black background which instantly shows the reader exactly what the amount paid was.
The third invoice that I am going to look at is from Abbey National. It is quite a lot different that the other two. As it is an invoice for a deposit and the amount will vary, it has been made in two stages. The invoice has been pre printed blank and it has been put into a dot matrix printer so that the details can be printed onto it.
2.3 Is it easy to understand and reader friendly?
Looking at the three invoices it is clear to see which one is the most reader friendly and which one is the easiest to understand. In the case of the Sheffield City council: It is printed on yellow paper which not only makes it not only clearer to read but it also allows you to access it easily. For example if you were trying to find the invoice from M and M Sports amongst a pile of other letters it would be difficult because they are all the same colour. Where as if you were looking for the Council invoice which is yellow it would be obvious where the invoice was.
All three of the invoices are easy to understand because they are all set out in a table format with clear headings of the different sections. As mentioned before, the fonts and styles used on the invoices allow them to be easily read. Although the three can be easily read, the one which is the easiest to understand is the deposit invoice from Abbey National. Instead of giving details about everything such as the ref no etc, it gives just the necessary information. The name of the customer, the details of the customer, the date and the signature of the cashier that dealt with the deposit are the only bits of information on it.
2.4 Use of a logo and colour.
The use of a logo is the same in each of the organisations invoices. In fact there isn’t really any difference in the style which the logo is presented. They are all designed so that you instantly know which organisation the invoice has come from. Similarly the colours are the same style. The colours used on the invoices are subtle yet bold enough to bring your attention straight to it.
2.5 Is the invoice attractive?
The organisations that I chose differ in their purpose. The Sheffield City Council being a professional and important business are going to have an invoice for the main purpose of informing a customer and looking professional rather than looking attractive. This is the same with Abbey National the invoice is just for the purpose of verifying and showing the customer details about the deposit that they have made.
Unlike these two invoices, the M and M sports invoice is quite attractive. This is because it is from a Sports goods magazine. This has two purposes. One purpose is that it makes the invoice colourful and aesthetically pleasing. The other is that it makes the organisation stick in your head. This helps to advertise the company because you will remember it due to the fact the invoice was different from others, it was colourful and attractive to look at.
- Standard letter.
In this section I am going to look at and compare the three standard letters that I have collected.
3.1 The common features between each letter.
The standard letters from M and M sports and Abbey National are virtually identical. They are laid out in the exact same way. Both have their company logo in the top left hand corner with the customer’s information underneath it. The purpose of both these letters is to confirm a service that has been provided to the customer, such as a new bank account or the confirmation of a return order.
The standard letter for the Sheffield City Council doesn’t have much in common with the other two. It has the logo, information of the customer involved and the purpose of it is to explain to the customer involved about the defective drain and gives details of payment that will follow.
3.2 Is it easy to understand and reader friendly?
It is clear just looking at the three standard letters which ones are the easiest to understand and more reader friendly. The letter from the Sheffield City Council looks very crowded and squashed together with lots of text, where as the other two letters have spaced out and ‘simple’ looking text that makes you want to read it.
3.3 Use of fonts.
The Abbey National and M and M Sports letters use the same size and style font. It uses a font that is clear and very easy to read. Unlike these letters where it is ‘short and sweet’ giving all of the information in only a small amount of text it gives a long detailed description of what the letter is all about and what it is that needs to be done.
The use of capitals is used in both the Abbey National letter and The Sheffield City Council letter. It is used to emphasise a certain part of the letter. In the case of the bank it is the new account number:
In the case of The Sheffield City Council, it is the part telling the customer what the standard letter is about:
3.4 Use of a logo and colour.
All three of the letters have the companies’ logo on. It is at the top of each letter to show the customer who it is from. The Abbey National and Sheffield Council letters are just white with the small amount of colour on the logo. However the M and M sports letter, like the invoice has a wash of subtle blue over faded pictures of sports events. Which again shows the customer the quality of the company and how it makes all its products high quality, even its standard letters and invoices?
3.5 Is the standard letter attractive?
Two of the standard letters look more professional than attractive. The Sheffield City Council are informing the customer so there will not be any need to make it attractive because it will fulfil its purpose being plain. The Abbey National letter although quite plain, it looks quite attractive. It is because of the way it is laid out. The Sheffield City Council Letter is laid out in a way that the body of the text is all cramped together and the other two are laid out so the text has lots of space. This makes the invoices look more attractive.
- Conclusions – What Have I found from the analysis?
- The three organisations that I chose were very different from one another and this reflected through their standard documents. I found that The Sheffield City Council was more for the purpose of informing than attracting or advertising.
- I also found that some organisations do little things to their documents which set them apart from others. M and M Sports was a good example of this because it showed the kind of styles that an organisation promotes their company while at the same time giving the customer the information that is needed.
- The thing that all of the documents had in common, was their use of the bold font. They all used this font to make an important part stand out from the rest. It was either used to direct the reader’s attention to a certain part or to make sections of the document more ‘important’.
