Every man is a borrower and a mimic, life is theatrical and literature a quotation.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson
Like any field that has to fight for relevance, design is mired in jargon. I’m talking not only about technical terms, Adobe-isms, and that sort of thing, but also verbal SUVs—big, pointless words that look fancy but don’t do anything. Dialectic. Utilization. Orchestrate. Dynamic. Synthesis. Do what Michael Pollan tells us to do with food: ask, would my grandma use this? If not, scrap it, and tone things down.
How (Not) to Write like a Designer: 5 Tricks You Didn’t Learn in Studio (via Khoi Vihn: http://www.subtraction.com/)