Stripping away the nonsense

The idea that bullshit is clever is bullshit. Graphic design is all about making sense of things but the way we talk about our work often makes no sense at all. We use jargon words like ‘insights’, ‘touchpoints’ and ‘differentiation’, and gobbledegook like ‘direct unequivocal propositions’, ‘convergent tangible context’ and ‘competitive brandscape analysis’. And we give free rein to puffed-up nonsense like ‘brand is not a product; it is the product’s source, its meaning and its direction, and it defines its identity in time and space’. Bullshit gets in the way of people understanding and valuing good design. This book is a collection of soundbites from my published writings on design that strip away the nonsense to reveal common sense.