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The network for creativity
Join 1.25M professional creatives like you
Connect with clients, get discovered, and run your business 100% commission-free
Creatives on Contra have earned over $150M and we are just getting started
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Back in 2018, I thought good writing meant sounding smart.
Long sentences. Bigger words. The kind of copy that made me feel like a "real writer."
That's what I believed when I started out.
I'd spend hours polishing a LinkedIn post until it sounded impressive... because to me, impressive meant credible.
What nobody told me was that nobody was actually reading it.
I didn't argue with myself. I just kept writing the same way.
And then something happened that quietly changed everything.
I posted two versions of the same idea, days apart. One dressed up. One stripped down to how I'd actually say it out loud.
The simple one got more engagement...
Not a little more. Enough that I couldn't ignore it.
So I sat with that for a while.
Because if simple worked better, what was all that "sounding smart" actually for?
It wasn't for the reader. It was for me.
It was my ego dressed up as expertise.
So I started writing the way I talk. Plain. Direct. One idea per line.
Slower to feel proud of at first... but it worked.
And now, when I write a post, I ask one question before I publish it:
"Would I say this out loud to a friend, or does it just sound good on paper?"
If it only sounds good on paper, I rewrite it.
Because good writing was never about sounding smart.
It was about being understood.
What's a lesson about writing you had to unlearn the hard way?
I recently put together a small collection of banner designs for different types of campaigns: real estate, food advertising, event promotion, and logistics.
What I always find interesting with banners is how little space you actually have to make something work. You need to catch attention, explain the offer, keep the layout readable, and still make it feel on-brand.
Curious to hear your thoughts: which one feels the strongest visually? And which one would make you stop scrolling?
This one stopped my scroll, the symmetry and all those small mechanical details reward a second look instead of just being busy for its own sake. Was this made for a specific brand or client, or is it more of a personal exploration piece you made because the concept was stuck in your head?
