What’s in a name?

Back when our founder, Rachel Sobel, was fresh out of journalism school and beginning her editorial career, her job description included what was then called desktop publishing. Designing and typesetting on computers was a new concept; one that required the discerning user to pay close attention to the kind of formatting that is now largely automatic.

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The Mac is Not a Typewriter by designer Robin Williams was published in 1989 and served as a bible for Macintosh users in the early days of electronic design. It called attention to the small details that distinguished the pros from the amateurs, including a whole chapter dedicated to the use of keystroke combinations to produce a curved or slanted “real apostrophe” rather than a straight up-and-down mark.

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When Rachel freelanced for a few years in the 1990s, she chose The Real Apostrophe as her business name to emphasize her love of typesetting and attention to detail. She returned to full-time magazine, agency, and corporate marketing positions until 2022, when she relaunched The Real Apostrophe, this time offering the full creative services of talented colleagues she had connected with over the years.