About Marmalade Keyboard

Since 2001 we have written for a broad and diverse gathering of customers. We create copy for charities, corporate companies, local authorities, public and non-government bodies, micro-business start-ups, not-for-profit organisations, small and medium enterprises and social investment agencies.

Whoever you are and wherever you come from, you’ll get the same high-quality service and attention to detail.

Our style

We subscribe to George Orwell’s six rules, written in 1946 and still relevant today:

• Never use a metaphor, simile, or other figure of speech overused by others in print or conversation.
• Never use a long word if you can use a short one.
• If you can cut a word, do.
• Never use the passive where you can use the active.
• Never use a foreign phrase, a scientific word, or a jargon word if you can think of an everyday English equivalent.
• Break any of these rules sooner than say anything outright barbarous.

Read the full text of George Orwell’s Politics and the English Language.

And that name?

While not solely Caledonian by invention, marmalade’s perfection and popularity happened first in Scotland. Our business evolution is similar.

In journalism, a ‘marmalade dropper’ is a breakfast news headline or story with an arresting impact. As you read, pop-eyed in astonishment, the preserve slides from your toast, soiling your newspaper or i-pad. While we do not claim to achieve exactly this effect in every one of our assignments, we do seek to write copy that captures the attention.

For us a marmalade day brings the unexpected. A client contacts us with an urgent need for copy, or calls for immediate help in resolving an editing crisis. A boss is yowling and screaming: “Sort my speech, now!”

On these mornings, we abstain from the routine ritual of a healthy, virtuous probiotic-yoghurt-and-organic-home-rolled-muesli-repast. Instead, we carve the loaf, flick on the grill, slather the butter and dollop the marmalade. With a busy day at the keyboard ahead, nothing so supremely sates the taste buds nor prepares the mind.

Kay Pringle

Kay is the owner and director of Marmalade Keyboard. A Durham University graduate, she is a member of the Chartered Institute of Public Relations, previously receiving their award for the most outstanding Communication Advertising and Marketing (CAM) diploma student. Similar recognition came from the College of Distributive Trades, now the London College of Communication.