Style 20, the File. Round 1

The register changes to the office. A manila folder photographed from above, a typed slip on it, and the headline as a RUBBER STAMP in red ink, the letters uneven where the pad was dry. The lockup is stamped too, in navy, at the foot of the slip; the agent is typed under the lines. Two faces: Archivo Black for the stamp, the bold grotesque every office stamp is cut in, and Special Elite for the typing. The stamp and the typing multiply into the paper and the folder so they take the plate's light; the stamp is roughened and eaten by a noise mask so no two letters print alike. A second plate: a kraft document envelope with its string closure.

Material from the idea bank, the kind a stamp can say: What This Took (CLEAR TO CLOSE), Real Numbers (UNDER CONTRACT), First-Time Buyer (APPROVED), No Pitch (CONFIDENTIAL), Market Note (OVERPRICED), Thanksgiving (OUT OF OFFICE). The typed lines carry the substance.

What to rule on. The stamp: does the ink read as a real stamp, and is the tilt right (five degrees) or should it sit square. The slip as the carrier of the copy. The two plates. The stamped lockup. Pass or note by name.

Six files, two plates

**FL-close**CLEAR TO CLOSE in red across the folder and the slip: what this took, forty-four days first call to keys.

**FL-contract**UNDER CONTRACT: the open house funnel, nine days on market.

**FL-approved**APPROVED in green: pre-approval in hand before the first showing.

**FL-confidential**CONFIDENTIAL: what your neighbor’s house sold for. Text me the address.

**FL-overpriced**OVERPRICED: sixty days and counting. The fix is not a new photo.

**FL-ooo**OUT OF OFFICE in navy: Thanksgiving, at the table with the phone face down.

**FL-envelope**APPROVED on the kraft document envelope.

**FL-envelope-conf**CONFIDENTIAL on the envelope.