Congratulations! So far you’ve survived 2026, and the Academy Awards approach. If you like the Oscars, that means it’s time to download and print some Oscar party games before the show on Sunday, March 15. As always, I’ve made a new Oscar Bingo game. And in an update to this post, I just whipped up a short Oscar Names game you can grab, too.

This marks my 18th year of designing Oscar bingo cards. A nice note I got last year:

“I just wanted to say, thank you for doing this every year. It is the highlight of Oscar night. I have friends this year who literally said they will only come for the bingo!”

I hope this year’s version doesn’t disappoint, because I want you to have friends, Kate.

My food this year is going to be Sinners-themed. I tested a roasted garlic martini that would definitely ward off vampires, but wasn’t great to drink. Instead, I’m going with a little garlic simple syrup added to bourbon, with sweet vermouth, bitters, and mezcal for smokiness. I’ll also have supplies for a “Sin and Tonic.”

Appetizers are looking like “Potato Skinners” and “Michael Brie Jordan Bites.” And I’m making “Lettuce In Salad” and “Smoked and Stacked Sammies.” Someone on Reddit suggested “Ryan Kugel,” which cracked me up, so I’m making a savory carmelized onion and garlic version. “Immortality Cupcakes” are going to have these bite marks.

Bingo prizes (I hope my party guests are not reading this): Garlic Expressions salad dressing (it’s really good), a Sanpellegrino box of Blood Orange sodas, and a bottle of Vampire cabernet.

Get your printable 2026 Oscar Bingo PDF

As always, there are 20 different cards. Print the number of pages you need. Pages are US letter-sized, 8.5” x 11.” Depending on your printer’s capabilities, print at 100% or reduce to fit.

Download the 2026 Oscar Bingo game

My standard disclaimer: I don’t know when a bingo might happen. Could be 15 minutes into the show, or theoretically never. Best wishes!

I also just added a new game.

New this year: Oscar middle names party game

In case you need a tie-breaker game, or something quick to do when the party energy lags, I give you: Guess the Oscar Nominee’s Middle Name game. Answers are on page 2 of the PDF. You could print the game sheet and hand them out, or just read the questions out loud and have people debate. When I started googling nominee names, I did NOT see some of those answers coming!

Download the 2026 Oscar Names game

Need a matching Oscar ballot?

You can find free ballots all over the internet, but a matching set is always prettier. The ballot has a points system to eliminate ties, with popular categories weighted more heavily. Bingo and the ballot are listed as a combo, and sales help cover my Oscar bingo newsletter cost.

Get the 2026 Oscar ballot from my Etsy shop

3/13 update: Etsy has placed my shop in “Vacation Mode” without warning or reason, so ordering may not be possible. I am working to correct this mistake. 

Sign up to get future Oscar bingo games

If you’d like an email alert when free Oscar bingo is ready next year, sign up here!

The post Free Oscar bingo game for 2026 appeared first on Jessica Jones.

Time to download 2025 Oscar bingo cards for your Oscar party! Squares are customized for the 2025 nominees and presenters. This year the Academy Awards are Sunday, March 2 at 7 PM EST. This marks my 17th year of making bingo sheets, an annual tradition.

Thoughts on the show

Thanks to my AMC Stubs A-list pass, my guilty pleasure, I’ve seen almost all the Best Picture nominees this year. Conclave was my favorite, but I expect The Brutalist or Anora to be the Best Picture winner. But details, schmetails. Winning this bingo game is what really matters.

I expect acknowledgement of LA’s horrific wildfires, maybe with tributes to firefighters. Fingers crossed for various telecast mishaps, and perhaps some Teeny Tiny Statement Pins?

“It’s wrong to stay silent. But it’s also wrong to say too much.”

Grab the bingo PDF

Download a PDF with 20 different cards at the link below, and print the number of pages you need.

Download 2025 Oscar bingo here

Bingo sheets are 8.5″ x 11″ with a 1/4″ white margin to accommodate home desktop printers. Depending on your printer’s capabilities, print at 100% or reduce to fit. If you like, cut off the white margin around the edges for a polished look.

A bingo could occur 15 minutes into the show, or maybe this year will be a total fail (never happened).

Get the matching 2025 Oscar ballot with points system

Want to make a game of predicting winners? An Oscar ballot with a points system in the same design is available in my Etsy shop as part of a bingo/ballot set. The points awarded to each category create a bigger spread in the totals, which helps prevent ties. (Sales of the combo set cover email fees and bingo-making.)

Sign up to get future Oscar bingo games

If you’d like an email alert when free Oscar bingo is ready each year, sign up here!

The post 2025 Oscar bingo party game appeared first on Jessica Jones.

Oscar bingo game cards, 2024 edition, are ready for free downloading! Whether you’re headed out to an Oscar party or lounging on the couch in your mojo dojo casa house, I hope it makes your night more fun. This year the Oscars are Sunday, March 10. The show starts an hour early at 7 PM EST, so you’ll have to serve your maestroganoff, barbie Q ribs, and killers of the flower moonpies early.

Annual fallibility disclaimer

Somebody might get a bingo 15 minutes into the show, or maybe every card is a dud. Will Ryan Gosling perform “I’m Just Ken?” A girl can only hope. Get your PDF with 20 different cards at the link below.

Download 2024 Oscar bingo here

Squares are customized for the 2024 Oscar presenters and nominees, along with classics we know and love. Standing ovation, someone tripping, etc. Print the number of cards you need for your group. You can use colored paper to match your party decor, or keep it classy with black and white. I printed my bingo cards on heavy champagne-colored paper with a metallic sheen. It doesn’t show up well in photos, but looks luxe in real life.

I printed out the pages at 100% and trimmed off the extra margin. For makeshift clipboards, I bought black bookboard sheets so people will have a firm surface to write on. Alex gave me fancy paperclips for Christmas one time, so I’ll attach a ballot and bingo page with those. Yes, after 16 years of making Oscar bingo, an innovation has occurred. We’re not using books as tables anymore.

Get the matching 2024 Oscar ballot with points system

There’s a matching 2024 Oscar ballot available in my Etsy shop.

It has a points system that helps prevent ties. The popular categories like Best Picture, Actress, and Actor are weighted more heavily to create a bigger spread in the total points. Sales of the Oscar ballot help cover the email fees to send bingo to everybody on the mailing list.

Join the Oscar bingo mailing list

If you’d like to receive free Oscar bingo in your inbox every year, sign up here! Then you won’t have to remember to check this blog. Happy Oscars and good luck!

The post 2024 Oscar bingo game appeared first on Jessica Jones.

Something I’ve been pondering in my business is how many choices to give clients.

I ordered an açaí bowl at a café recently. I had no idea what toppings to add, because I didn’t even know what açaí is, besides trendy. I didn’t feel qualified to choose.

The conversation

Store clerk: “You can put anything on it! We have this and this and this and this and this and this and this.”

Me, feeling helpless: “Uh…. what would you put on yours?”

Clerk: “I like strawberries, coconut, and granola.”

Me: “Great. I’ll have strawberries, coconut, and granola.”

He snickered.

This annoyed me.

Me: “Also blueberries.” Just to assert my independence.

It was delicious and I was delighted.

How this relates to design projects

Similarly, in brand design projects, it’s common for design studios to offer many choices and rounds of revisions.

“Here are several logos, all great for various reasons. Choose the one you think is best. Need any revisions? If yes, what would you like? Now, which of these color palettes do you prefer? Which font pairing? They’d each work well—which do you want to go with?”

I’ve operated this way, too, thinking it serves the customer. We respect them and want them to feel ownership and autonomy. Offering choices along the way allows them to craft something they can feel more connected to. Right?

Maybe not. In reality, asking people to choose can make them feel tired or helpless. Especially if it’s not their area of expertise. What most people would love is an expert to take responsibility and tell them what’s best.

Give your expert recommendation

If you’re an experienced açaí bowl seller, and a customer looks unsure because they’ve never ordered one, propose one solution. Maybe with a small customization option.

And if you’re an experienced designer, and your clients are not experienced designers, propose one solution. Maybe with a small customization option. Pitch with guidance: “either would work great, but I’d go with this because [rationale].”

Then, because it was the recommendation of a specialist instead of selected all by themselves, clients won’t perpetually wonder if they did the right thing. Give them the gift of confidence in the final product.

The post Do clients really want choices? appeared first on Jessica Jones.

Sometimes you hear a business name that’s so good, it sticks with you. Years ago I stumbled on a small shop in Portland called Noun: A Person’s Place for Things. I don’t remember much about the pretty things in the store. Just the name, which delighted me. When I was a kid on vacation with my family, a guy on the lake had a fishing boat named the Lip Ripper. Ew! It lives on in my mind. Not every business or product name has to be so catchy. Some of the most successful companies have very utilitarian names. But every entrepreneur wants a name they can stand behind proudly. When you love your brand, your confidence will make promoting it easier. If you’re wondering how to choose a business name thoughtfully, read on.

The other day a good friend texted me out of the blue:

“Is it a bad idea to add “F” in front of lemonade, i.e., Flemonade? Is it me or does that sound/feel odd?”

Once I realized he was trying to name a company, my reaction was instant:

That is odd, and not in a good way.

Later he asked what I thought of misspelled business names, like Flickr or Fiverr. I don’t love them. More on why in a minute.

But I empathize with the struggle. Naming is haaaard. All the good names are taken!

But wait. Are all the good business names taken? There are more than one million words in the English language. And they can be combined in different ways, either in their entirety or in parts, or you can even make up words that “sound right” based on linguistic principles most of us don’t even notice. Naming is a word puzzle that can have satisfying solutions.

Professional firms who specialize in business naming will charge tens of thousands to handle this process for you, because it’s hard, and it’s invaluable. Many small businesses starting out don’t have that kind of budget. So if you want to DIY it, follow the steps in this mini guide to company naming.

Steps in a nutshell

1. Decide what the business name should convey
2. Consider categories of names to explore
3. Brainstorm business name ideas
4. Test your favorite name ideas

1. Decide what the business name should convey

Before you dive into brainstorming, establish some direction. Ask yourself:

What are some distinctive qualities of your business or product?

Obviously your company does something or sells something, so you’re aware of what you’re naming. It’s an energy drink or a marketing firm, for example.

But besides that, what qualities does this business or product have? List some traits. For example: future-focused, super durable, unusually creative, unconventional, cerebral, uncommonly kind, relies on a long tradition, strives for perfection, has a certain geographical location, is very creamy, moves fast, has German origins… you get the idea. List any traits you can think of.

How should the name sound?

Perhaps powerful, or relaxing, no-frills practical, premium, spicy, or humorous. Jot down a few adjectives.

Who should the name resonate with?

A certain age group, gender, ethnicity, profession, people with particular interests or feelings. Maybe it’s people with aging parents, or new dog owners, blue-collar workers, stressed-out people with no time, marketing departments, hedge fund managers, or whatever. Keep your audience in mind, not just your own team. They may be different.

In what geographic region will this brand exist?

Maybe you already know it will remain a local business. Maybe you hope to scale regionally, nationally, or internationally. A small town plumber will have fewer concerns than a globally-sold salty snack, which will need language screening to make sure the name doesn’t accidentally mean boobs in Mandarin. Two similar businesses with the same name in two different states may not face much legal risk if neither plans to expand to the other’s location (avoiding customer confusion). But a national brand will need more screening. Be mindful of your business goals when naming, either to possibly reference the location in the name, or for getting legal clearances.

Is there anything to avoid when choosing the name?

Think of your immediate competitors. If their names all fit a certain mold (tech startups that end in “ify” or “ly,” car models with animal names, consultancies using initials, or boutiques called noun & noun) you may want to go a different direction to stand out. Or maybe you suspect your products or services will shift over time. In that case, you might want to avoid pigeon-holing yourself with an overly descriptive name. On the other hand, maybe descriptive is exactly what you need, if you don’t want to work hard to market an unusual, abstract name.

2. Consider categories of business names to explore

For inspiration, it’s helpful to be aware of different types of company names. You can choose some to focus on, and rule out others that don’t seem appealing. If you’re not sure which category is best, brainstorm a few initial names in every category. See which direction you prefer. Then dive deeper into your favorite.

Experts divide names into lots of different categories and differ on what those categories should be… uh… named. To keep it super basic, here are some categories to consider when choosing a business name.

Construction of the name

Most brand names fall into three categories based on how they’re built.

Real words

These are words that exist in languages already: Amazon, Taco Bell, Oracle, The New York Times, Twitter, Philip Morris, Peloton.

Real-word names could be from other languages like Latin or Swedish. They could be characters from mythology, or founder names, or terms from basket weaving.

Compound words

These are stuck-together real words that aren’t normally joined: Dropbox, Fitbit, PayPal, YouTube, FedEx.

Made-up words

These are invented words: Pixar, Kleenex, Verizon, Xerox, Accenture, Kodak.

These coined names can be misspellings, shortenings, or mash-ups of partial words. Many have at least some connection to real words. Accenture is an abbreviation of “accent on the future.” Xerox is a made-up word meaning “dry writing,” from the Greek xero (dry) and graphy (write). Latin prefixes and suffixes can come in handy in this category.

The sound of an invented word can hold meaning, too. In a famous experiment, people are shown a rounded amoeba shape and a pointy, star-like shape. They’re offered two names: Kiki and Bouba. Participants are asked to assign one name to each shape. Overwhelmingly, people across the world name the spiky shape Kiki and the blob shape Bouba. Humans are used to associating sounds with meanings, and it works in naming. If you’re coining a new word, trust your instincts. A nonsense word might “sound” big, small, fast, slow, bright, dark, fancy, rugged, male or female. If it just “sounds right” to you, it will probably sound right to other people, too.

Style of the name

Besides how a name is constructed, consider its style. The line between these can be fuzzy, but it’s helpful to think about two approaches when choosing a business name.

Descriptive

These names describe a business, product, or service in a literal way. They reference what the business does, sometimes adding a founder’s name or a geographic origin. The Container Store. The Weather Channel. Hotels.com. Mike’s Carwash. Kentucky Fried Chicken. Bank of America.

On the plus side, these are straight-forward and clear. They can help you seem trustworthy, because what you see is what you get. The down side is they don’t offer any hints about your brand personality. They don’t have a story or emotion embedded in them. This may be a missed opportunity to create a stronger connection with your audience. These can also be harder to trademark.

Creative

This category is suggestive, metaphorical, or arbitrary. Nike, the goddess of victory. Twitter, the sound of birds talking to each other in short chirps. Bluetooth was a king who united Scandinavia. Swiffer is a made-up word, but it sounds like it should mean swishing the dust off of surfaces.

Creative names have the potential for greater impact. They can trigger emotions and mental pictures. They prompt the audience to search for meaning, and when they discover it, it feels satisfying. Subconsciously, customers transfer this happy feeling to your product. The downside is these names can be confusing or misinterpreted. (Apple makes… phones?) But creative names are usually more memorable. They imply that your brand is more than simply your product or service. There’s a story behind it.

Two types of business names you might want to skip

In my work as a visual identity designer, I see a lot of brand names. There are two common types of company names that bum me out when I need to work with them. Not saying you can’t use these styles! Just be sure to consider the downsides first.

Initialisms

This is a group of all-caps letters pronounced individually. You see it all the time. Business consultants Bob Johnson, Mary Smith, and Jane Harding get together and name their new company “JSH Consulting.” It’s functional, but utterly forgettable. Yes, IBM is a household name. But only because time and money have made the brand name famous. (Until 1947 the logo spelled out “International Business Machines,” a descriptive name from yesteryear.) If you don’t have decades and millions in your marketing budget, avoid letters that will seem meaningless to the uninformed.

If you want to use initials, try to create an acronym—a set of letters pronounced as a word. NERF stands for Non Expanding Recreational Foam. NASA stands for National Aeronautics and Space Administration. GEICO is The Government Employees Insurance Company. These acronyms are easier to say and remember because they follow spelling and pronunciation rules.

Misspellings

Can a misspelled word make a good company name, like Flickr or Fiverr? A word that’s spelled wrong can seem like a good idea. It’s uniquely ownable, and often available as a domain name. However, customers don’t like misspelled names quite as much as correctly-spelled names. They can be seen as inauthentic and gimmicky. And you’ll need to work extra hard to educate your audience.

Entrepreneur at a party: “I just started a dog grooming company! It’s called Groomr.”
Stranger: “Cool, I have a dog. I’ll check it out. Do you have a website?”
Entrepreneur: “Yes! It’s groomr.com. Spelled like groomer, but without the E.”

I’m pretty sure you don’t want your tagline to be “Spelled without the E.”

Unless you have a big marketing budget, be aware that it’s going to take awhile to train the public on your unique spelling. Especially if it uses letter combinations that never appear in your native language.

3. Brainstorm business name ideas

Once you’ve pondered what the name should convey, and you have possible styles in mind, it’s brain dump time. You start a spreadsheet with a new row for every name possibility. It’s easy to cut, paste, or reorder. Or you might prefer Post-it notes or mind maps with words in circles connected by lines.

Each name can send you off in different directions as you pursue certain metaphors, styles, or combinations. Once you’ve exhausted a particular avenue, go back to the fork in the road and set off down a different path. Don’t edit as you go. Write fast, edit later.

Business name prompts to fuel your creativity

Famous stories

Search lists of fables, famous literature, plays, movies, or historical incidents that involve a certain theme (money, speed, growth, etc.), and choose a word, phrase, part of a quote, place, or person’s name from the story.

Made-up stories

Imagine something great that happens to a customer that uses your service, or where your ingredients come from, or how your thing gets made, and take words from that story. (Victory Lap, Bedhead)

Idioms

Search for idioms and short sayings that contain a particular word or topic, like “southern sayings” or “water idioms.” Pick out words from the phrase to use, or replace one of the words with a rhyming word. For example, “many hands make light work” becomes Many Hands.

Adjectives

Add an adjective. There are many types:
Descriptive: crimson, short, truthful, etc.
Numeral: three, second, etc.
Quantitative: many, half, any, etc.
Interrogative: how, which, whose, etc.
Possessive: your, our, her, etc.
Extra points for alliteration—unless it sounds too flippant for your brand (Best Buy, Constant Contact, Merry Maids)

Niche vocabulary

Search for less-common words associated with an industry, trade, or subject (math terms, nautical terms, types of rocks, people on the Mayflower).

Word of mouth

Make a list of what people could say about your brand if they were telling a friend about it. Fill in the blank and make a name out of it: “That’s the one that is ___.” For example, “That’s the one that’s open 7 am to 11 pm: 7-Eleven. (Halfprice Books, Anytime Fitness)

Places

List place names that may be relevant, either because they’re near your location or they have the right association (Niagara, tundra, midwest, camp, pond, Sahara, gate, arctic).

Founder

Use a founder’s name or made-up person’s name that has the right qualities (Kate Spade, Smucker’s, Chanel).

Dictionary browse

If there’s a certain sound you’re after—for example, ch, k, and f words can sound fast, while b, d, m, and n words can sound slow—go hunting in those sections.

Truncate

Drop the beginning or ending (Accurate becomes Acura).

Replace

Replace a letter or syllable, as long as the word is still spelled the way it sounds (Dictionary becomes Pictionary).

Phrase

A name can be more than a word or two. (Live it Up, Favor the Brave)

Latin parts

Search for lists of Latin roots, prefixes, or suffixes and add them onto other words or fragments. Mine other languages using the same idea.

Translate

Use a translation tool to find foreign words. Caution! Run these by a native speaker if you can, to make sure there aren’t any nuances you’re unaware of.

AI

Describe your naming challenge to ChatGPT or one of the many other AI apps and generate lists of names. Most of it will be useless, but there could be a good seed or two.

Resources to help you brainstorm brand names

• 50 Ways to Name It – a fantastic booklet by Caitlin Barrett [Update: I just found this—go get it!]
• Onelook.com — generate lists of related words, phrases and rhymes
• A reverse dictionary online or in print — search for words by their definition
• Books or Google searches for word lists you’re curious about

Set realistic expectations

Don’t expect to finish in an afternoon. Naming your business will likely need several focused sessions, plus absent-minded pondering in the shower.

Your first list of names may be useless. Most will already be taken because they’re obvious. Don’t worry! It’s part of the process. Once you’ve done a first pass, you might see ideas worth exploring in spin-off lists. And if you sleep on it, you’ll have new ideas next time. You may need hundreds of names to find something that both fits your criteria and has low legal risk.

4. Test your favorite business name ideas

Once you’ve got some good contenders, it’s time to test them. Here are some helpful questions.

Is the name easy to say?

On a night out with friends, we named our trivia team the Rural Squirrels to see if we could trip up the MC with a name that’s tough to pronounce. Sure enough, when announcing the teams, the MC stumbled over it and laughed. Success!

But unless you’re a comedian, you probably don’t want to choose a business name that’s a tongue twister. Say it out loud in sentences. “I work at X.” “They wanna buy an X.” “We hired X to do it.” Is it easy? Does it make you feel silly, or confident?

[Update: I wrote this post before Twitter was renamed X. Let’s test it: “I saw that Jessica Xed about that.” Awkward. This is why everyone still says “tweeted.”]

Would you know how to pronounce it if you saw it in writing?

Will people read the name out loud correctly? Starchive—is that “star chive” the herb, or “star kive,” a play on archive? SaYes Studio—is that “sah yes,” “say yes” or “saze”? Confusion is not a good feeling to associate with your brand.

Does it look good in print?

Type it out on a blank page. Put a after it so it looks official. Visually, does it look reasonable?

Does it have a meaning in another language that is bad or doesn’t fit?

Run it through Google translate and see if anything obvious comes up. This may not matter if you’re a local small business with no desire to become a global brand. Apparently Clairol had to rename their Mist Stick because “mist” means manure in German, but that wouldn’t be a problem for many businesses.

Does a Google search show other companies using it?

Try searching for the exact name, and also parts of the name plus your industry or location. See what comes up.

Is something similar registered in the TESS database?

See if other businesses have trademarked the name you’re considering. Search the US Patent and Trademark Office’s database, TESS (Trademark Electronic Search System). This can be confusing to do, so if you don’t feel confident you’ve done it right, don’t worry. In your final step, a lawyer will check on your behalf.

Is a reasonable domain name available?

Don’t panic if your ideal domain is taken. A domain name doesn’t need to be a perfect match to the business name. Today audiences are far more likely to do a Google search than type the exact URL in the address bar. Let Google do the work of finding your site. Here are two ways to pick a domain name if your exact business name is taken.

Add another word, either before or after the business name

Options could include a clarifying word, such as your location (nyc, global, midwest, etc.), the type of product or service you offer (cafe, transport, cpa, research, tech, etc.), or your business type (inc, studio, group, firm, agency, hq, club, app, store, etc.). Or, create a phrase by adding short words like “my, hey, hi, its, stay, go, shop, think, now, choose, always, get, try, taste, etc.” in front of the business name. Add “now, fun, everywhere, experts, crew, fast, etc.” after the name. These extra words wouldn’t be in the company name or logo, but they can be used in the domain name and matching social media handles.

Use a top level domain (TLD) other than .com

.Net is just fine, or consider .co. Many tech startups choose .io, (input/output). Descriptive TLDs could be good choice, too (.agency, .store, life, .cooking, etc.) Here’s a list of possibilities.

As you’re considering, remember that you’ll want a matching email address, so make sure the domain will fit on a business card. Christopher@clevelandpestcontrolandlandscaping.com may struggle.

Hire a lawyer if you want to legally claim the name

Recommended!!! They’ll do a more thorough search and advise you of any risks. This helps ensure you can confidently use the name without risk of stepping on another company’s turf.

If the DIY approach fails

If you’ve given naming a go, and you still feel stuck, get in touch with a naming specialist. Your brand name is the element of your brand that you’ll keep the longest, and it’s an opportunity to create something strategic. Choose well!

More reading

Many resources from Caitlin Barrett at Naming for Everyone, Psychology of Brand Names by Nick Kolenda, Brand Naming by Rob Meyerson, Don’t Call It That by Eli Altman

The post How to choose a business name you love: a DIY guide to naming your brand appeared first on Jessica Jones.

2023 Oscar bingo cards are ready! Grab your free PDF download below, ahead of the show on Sunday, March 12 at 8 PM ET.

This year’s design (my 15th annual, holy cow) is art deco-inspired. I like a classic, old-Hollywood look for these. I printed out the pages at 100% on letter-sized cream paper, then cut off the extra margin.

There are 20 different Oscar bingo card variations, customized for the 2023 nominees. Choose your card. The first person to mark off five squares in a row wins. Diagonal counts, too. In case you have never played bingo in your life.

Heads up if anyone is playing with kids

one of the Oscar nominees has a cheeky title this year. A square that mentions it is on seven of the cards, so avoid those if it’s too scandalous for your crowd.

Annual fallibility disclaimer

Someone might get a bingo 10 minutes into the show, or maybe never.

Download Oscar bingo 2023 here

Get a matching 2023 Oscar ballot

If you enjoy juggling papers during the show, and matching is important to you, there’s an Oscar ballot with the same design in my Etsy shop.

It has a points system to eliminate ties, with popular categories weighted more heavily. Sales help cover the cost of sending out bingo to the mailing list.

Join the bingo mailing list

If you’d like to receive free Oscar bingo in your inbox every year, sign up!

Happy Oscar viewing. I’m sure the Academy has made every one of the changes that I suggested last year. Good luck!

The post 2023 Oscar bingo cards appeared first on Jessica Jones.

Greetings, office peeps! When you’re designing a Powerpoint presentation or Word document, do you ever feel like something doesn’t look right? You can’t put your finger on it. Somehow the page looks amateur instead of professional. If you don’t have a designer friend to advise you, or enough time to hire a pro, these DIY design tips can help. Small tweaks will make your page layouts and Powerpoint presentations look more professional.

1. Gather all the content before you start

Have your text written and any crucial pictures and graphs in a folder, collected before you start designing. Then, like with a moving truck full of furniture, you can simply unpack it and place it around the room. You don’t want somebody showing up with a surprise piano halfway through! You can always add non-essential decorative elements later, but make sure you’ve got all the key ingredients before you start arranging content.

2. Begin with the longest slide

If you’re making a multi-page document, design the page or slide that has the most text first. Use this page as a starting template for the rest of your pages. Then you’ll never run out of room on a page later. You’ll already have planned for the most stuff that needs to fit. If some pages end up with extra white space, great! You can make a picture bigger or just leave some breathing room. (More on that in a sec.)

3. Set healthy margins

A common mistake is skinny margins. Placing items too close to the edges of your document creates uneasy tension. Like a glass on the edge of table near a toddler or a cat.

Pull your content away from the edges, and your page will look more professional. If needed, scale down fonts and pictures, or move some elements to the next slide.

4. Make a visual hierarchy

Where do you want people to look first? Interesting layouts have a clear focal point, where one item is bigger or louder than everything else. A main image could be the star, or big text could be the star. If everything in your layout commands the same attention, the page is boring and our eyes don’t know where to land. Layouts that have a nice mix look more dynamic: a main big thing, some medium things, and some small things.

5. Leave empty space

Unless it’s a dense report or a novel, filling every bit of white space feels crowded and daunting to readers. Aim to leave a quarter of your page empty. You might need to ruthlessly cut some content, shrink pictures, or use more pages. If it’s a presentation, see if you can boil your points down to a short phrase each. The examples below show pages that need to be readable on their own, like a brochure. If you’re presenting live, use just a few lines or points per slide.

6. Align what you can

Our eyes move through layouts by following edges—edges of paragraphs, boxes, lines, etc. Make it easy for readers to move through your layout by keeping essential elements organized in rows and columns.

7. When in doubt, left align text

Centering lengthy copy looks messy. Those ragged edges mean each line begins in a different place. Our eyes have to do more work to find the start of each row. This is fine when you have only three or four short lines of text, but not when you have more than that. In that case, left alignment is better.

8. Avoid orphans

In typography, an orphan is a sad little word that ends up on a line all by itself at the bottom of a paragraph. They are not cute! Look after those little babies and give them a family. Type some soft returns (shift+enter) to break lines at better places, pushing another word or two down to keep your orphan company.

9. Avoid rivers

Rivers are awkward trails of vertical space that can show up in justified paragraphs. “Justification” is an option for text alignment, where space is added between words to make the left and right edges of a paragraph line up. Choosing justified alignment is not always wrong, but it’s harder to work with. To fix rivers, you’ll need a generous number of words per line and lots of hyphens, often added manually. This is a hassle. In general, left alignment is a better choice than justification. It prevents unsightly rivers.

10. Avoid long lines of text: target 45-90 characters

Long lines of text are hard to follow across a page. In paragraphs, target 45-90 characters per line, including spaces. Research has shown that readers are more likely to avoid reading text when line lengths don’t fit the optimal range. To fix lines that are too long, use a larger font size, wider page margins, narrower text boxes, or more columns. In general, a landscape slide will need two or more columns of text. A portrait letter will need much wider margins than Word’s default settings.

11. Stick to one or two typefaces

Using too many fonts can look chaotic. Choosing just one typeface (a.k.a. family of fonts) and using different weights is nice. For example, use bold headings with regular-weight paragraph text. Or, pick a font from two different families, using one for headlines and one for paragraphs. Make sure they’re noticeably different from each other, so it doesn’t look like an accident.

A reliable combination is pairing a serif font with a sans serif font. (If you just said, “what the what?” serifs are the little feet on some styles of letters. “Sans serif” means without the feet.) See examples below that use free Google Fonts.

12. Use limited colors

To keep your life simple, choose one main color for your design. If you like, add one or two accent colors in smaller amounts. Repeat those accents so they look intentional, not like random one-offs.

13. Use icons instead of bullets

Icons are more interesting than bullets. If your page needs to look more engaging, swap in small icons instead of bullets to add interest and color. Links to free icon sources are below.

14. Use matching icons

It’s easy to get carried away searching for the icon subject matter you need, and then forget to consider the style of the icon. Does it look like the same artist drew all the icons in your document? It should. Consistency is key to professional design. Icon styles can be solid or outlined with thin or thick lines. They can have rounded corners or sharp ones. They can be smoothly geometric or roughly hand-drawn. Make sure they match! The internet is full of designers you can hire, sets you can purchase, or for freebies, check out:

Reshot free icons — a variety of styles
Feather icons — adjust the size, color and stroke thickness of 287 icons
Font Awesome icons — 2,000+ freebies with 19,000 more for purchase
Hand-drawn Goods icons — sets of sketched icons

15. Keep icons small

To help fill a page, it’s tempting to make icons really big. This can look clunky. If your icons don’t have much detail, keep them small, since that’s the purpose they were designed for.

16. Use better illustrations instead of “clip art”

Stock photographs are easy to find (see my list of free sources) but good, free illustrations are trickier. Some sources of free illustrations are below, or you can purchase stock illustrations or hire an illustrator. Just like icons, make sure all of your illustrations are the same style.

Blush illustrations
Humaaans illustrations
Storyset illustrations

Be the design star in your office

Often just a few basic tweaks can help designs and Powerpoint presentations look better. Even if you don’t feel like a designer, you’ll be ahead of the pack in your office!

And if your company needs a consistent brand look and feel, instead of every person reinventing the wheel every time, a brand identity designer can help. We use a strategic approach to create a signature theme for your company: colors, fonts, and images in templates that your team can use all the time. No more guessing each time you make a document. If this is something your business could use, let’s talk!

Note: Text in the example images was auto-generated by Corporate Ipsum for humor. Please do not write this way for real.  

The post How to make Powerpoint slides look more professional: 16 design tips appeared first on Jessica Jones.

My Oscar bingo cards for 2022 are ready. This year the Oscars will be on Sunday, March 27, 2022 at 8 PM ET on ABC. It’s my 14th year in a row designing bingo cards. It’s tradition. It’s nostalgia. The world around us may be shifting, but Oscar bingo will go on. If you’re one of the few and faithful who is planning a watch party, even if it’s just you and your dog, I salute you!

Sure, last year’s Academy Awards had roughly half the viewers of 2020’s record low. But 9.85 million is still a lotta people for a live TV event. Outside of sportsball, there aren’t many real-time events I can watch knowing I’m gathered with people around the nation. I’m not a sportsy person, so that leaves me with the arts.

This year there will be three hosts: Wanda Sykes, Regina Hall, and Amy Schumer. I hear they’ll be trading off, each hosting an hour of the show. It will be fine.

(Jump to Oscar Bingo or keep reading.)

Ideas for how to fix the Oscars

I adore the show, but I have a few suggestions.

• First, stop trying to make the show shorter. Nobody is like, “I WOULD watch this show if I knew it would last precisely 3 hours. But I can’t watch any of it, since it might accidentally be 3 hours and fifteen minutes.” It’s done when it’s done. Like the Superbowl.
• There should be one host. They don’t have to be funny. But they must have amazing style. They must change clothes every 20 minutes. I nominate Tracee Ellis Ross or Zendaya. They would wear only the most glamorous or interesting things, preferably from emerging designers who could use a career boost.
• Introverted winners get to collect their trophy, wave, and go sit down. If any winner starts into a boring list of names, play them off immediately. Anyone who tells a riveting story or is visibly rattled, weepy, adorable, or intoxicated can stay until they’re done. That won’t include many people, so it will save a lot of time.

With the extra time, do this:

• Add a “Best Stunt Work” category. Reward the James Bond and Marvel folks for their bruises and creativity.
• Add “Best Graphic Design in a Live Action Film.” Somebody is designing all those opening credits, storefront signs and bus ads. Shout out to my graphic design peeps! Wait, is this part of Production Design? I don’t even know what that is, so let’s split it into separate awards. If the Oscars is about making movies, let’s celebrate all the jobs. A little kid out there might see a future career.
• Add “Best Prop Design.” The winner tells us where they found something cool or how they built an interesting thing.
• Add “Best Casting.” Tell us a story about how you do your job. I wanna know how it works.
• Add a “Best Voiceover” category. When introducing the category, play a clip from each nominee. Pause 5 seconds after each clip for viewers at home to write down who they think it is, then reveal the nominee. An extra game embedded within the show.
• Awards for “Best Costume Design” and “Best Makeup and Hairstyling” require the winner to bring to the stage people modeling their creations.
• Whichever film wins “Animated Short” gets played for us immediately.
• No sappy music during the In Memoriam segment. Have Weird Al write a song that includes the name of every person and what they were known for, and he performs it as a polka. Wait no, maybe Lin Manuel Miranda should rap it. Either way, make it a party.
• Throughout the broadcast, sprinkle in fun facts about how movies have influenced everyday life. Things like Milton’s famous red stapler in Office Space. A prop person painted a black stapler red. Afterwards Swingline was mobbed with people wanting one, so they manufactured a red version. Neat!
• Whichever celebrity is a shoo-in for a win, pay them extra to trip going up the stairs. They’re actors, so they’ll make it look real. And we can cross off that square on our Oscar bingo.

Which you can grab below.

Oscar bingo cards for 2022

Download the Oscar bingo PDF and print however many pages you need. I kept it simple to spare your toner cartridge, but you could print it on colored paper if you like. There are 20 different cards customized for this year. The first person to mark off five squares in a row wins. Diagonal counts, too.

Download Oscar bingo 2022 PDF

Get the matching 2022 Oscar ballot

For a ballot that matches the bingo design, head to my Etsy shop. (Proceeds help cover the Mailchimp fees for sending out free bingo to 2,000 people every year.)

Annual fallibility disclaimer

Someone might get a bingo 10 minutes into the show, or maybe never.

Get next year’s Oscar bingo

If you’re not on the Oscar bingo mailing list, sign up here. Next year’s game will go out a week or two before the ceremony. No need to sign up again if you’re already on the list.

Have fun!

The post Oscar bingo cards for 2022— A free printable + how to fix the Oscars appeared first on Jessica Jones.

I’ve titled this blog post “best Google fonts in 2021,” which is shameless clickbait. What is “best”? Who made me the authority? Nobody, lol. What I really mean is my current favorites, which I’ve put into a specimen PDF that might be useful to you. It shows how each typeface looks in headlines and body copy, so you can get a feel for the style and readability.

When I’m picking typefaces for a client’s brand, I usually choose fonts that aren’t free. Premium, professional fonts are often better designed, with a bigger set of weights and styles. But sometimes ease of access and smaller project budgets mean choosing from Google’s free font library. It contains thousands of options, many of which are not useful.

To save you some hunting, I’ve made a PDF showing my favorites in use. If you use Adobe Illustrator, you can open the PDF in that program and change the fonts to test others.

The placeholder text is Star Trek Ipsum from a generator created by Vlad Saling. The magnificent quotes are sourced from actual TV show transcripts. 

At the time of this writing, all fonts shown are free for commercial use, though the availability of Google Fonts may change. 

Download the Google Fonts specimens PDF

My favorites shown on the pages:

Body typefaces

• Inter
• IBM Plex Sans
• Barlow
• Epilogue
• Poppins
• Sarabun
• Space Grotesk
• Source Serif Pro
• Lora
• IBM Plex Serif
• Alegreya
• Mirza (also good for display uses)

Not shown but worth investigating: Merriweather, Montserrat, Lato, and Roboto. I didn’t add them since they’ve become a bit overused, but they’re popular for a reason.

Display typefaces (best for headlines only)

• Shrikhand
• Syne
• Coiny
• Mogra
• Chango
• Titan One
• Bellota
• Ceviche
• Modak

If you found this post useful, you might enjoy my once-a-month (ish) newsletter where I send out freebies like this, plus stories, tips, and musings about design, culture, and life running an independent design business. Many non-designers have told me they enjoy it, too, so possibly it’s not a total snoozefest if you don’t know what a serif is.

Click to join the mailing list

The post The best Google fonts in 2021— My favorites tested in an editable PDF appeared first on Jessica Jones.

(Looking for 2022 bingo? click here!)

Well, friends, it’s Oscar bingo time again! This, my 13th year of making Oscar bingo, is a weird one. What kind of ceremony this 2021 pandemic edition will be, I have no clue.

The 2021 Oscars are on Sunday, April 25 at 8 PM EST, airing on ABC. There will be no featured host. There will be a small live audience of nominees and guests at LA’s Union Station, with some parts of the show taking place at the Dolby Theatre. A letter sent to nominees from the producers requested attire that is “a fusion of Inspirational and Aspirational.” I hope that is interpreted as fancy dresses and not t-shirts with Steve Jobs quotes.

Actors, you have one job to do as long as this ceremony is televised. That job is to transport me to fantasy land. Yes, there’s dissonance in honoring stories about the sad plight of humankind while dripping in diamonds, but I choose to overlook it. The Golden Globes were awkwardly fun and I learned that Jeff Daniels has a lot of doors in his house. But this is the Oscars. I want sparkles.

Jason Sudeikis and Jeff Daniels at the Golden Globes looking endearingly normal. Photos: NBC

Annual fallibility disclaimer

I have no idea how Steven Soderbergh and company are going to run this ceremony. So we might get a bingo 10 minutes into the show, or maybe it will be impossible for the first time ever (though I doubt it. I aim to create winners). At a minimum, playing bingo makes watching the Oscars more fun, even if you’re having a Zoom party with friends instead of your usual black tie affair.

Yes, to my delight, some people get formal. I’ve received photos of dressed-up groups who use my game. One party has everyone bring $5 to “purchase” a bingo card. The money is then divided out among the first winner, second, and third. Brilliant!

One of my favorite emails last year was from M, who said, “I have been playing since 2014. Every year I have an Oscar party with my grandma and this year she’s 97 years old.”

I, for one, will be wearing sequin pants this year as an act of Covid defiance. From my couch.

Download the free bingo game

Download the Oscar bingo file and print out the number of pages you need. Print on colored paper that matches your Oscar party theme if you like. The first person to get five squares in a row (diagonal is fair game) wins. There are 20 different sheets:

Oscar bingo 2021 PDF

Get a matching ballot

If you need a matching ballot to mark your predictions before the show, there’s one in my Etsy shop right here. (Proceeds help cover the Mailchimp fees for sending out the bingo game to 2,000 people every year.)

Get next year’s Oscar bingo game

To join the Oscar bingo mailing list for future years so you don’t miss out, sign up here. A link to next year’s file will be emailed to you a week or two before the ceremony. If you’re already on the mailing list, no need to sign up again. I’ve already got you.

Enjoy!

The post Oscar bingo 2021: pandemic edition appeared first on Jessica Jones.