Designing Words

What word describes the feeling you get when you look back on bad design decisions you’ve made in the past? You think: “Did I really think it was okay to use a photoshop filter on top of fully saturated cyan verdana type?”

Moments of insight are always a little suspicious. Maybe this is because I grew up in the Bible Belt and heard stories about dramatic revelations almost incessantly. But there was a moment in my second year of college when I saw the light and realized that everything is designed. This is probably one of the biggest eye-openers I took away from architecture school that literally changed the way I perceive things. And not just the objects that surround us that are explicitly designed, but also ideas and language around those ideas are cleverly and critically constructed. Which is really a long way to say: I like to make up words.

Verbotomy is a place for people who also like to make up words. It’s a daily competition to create a word for some gap in language. For instance: What do you call folks who Googles themselves? What should you call congratulating a woman on her pregnancy only to realize she isn’t pregnant? Anyone can submit words and anyone can vote for their favorites.  I do this almost every day and I enjoy doing it. Maybe you will enjoy it too?

I pray you will.

Alex