The thing about words…
January 21, 2010
Today was a talk by the esteemed John Simmons, author of such fabulous books as: Innocent: Building a Brand from Nothing but Fruit; Twenty-six ways of looking at a Blackberry: How to let writing release the creativity of your brand; and, The Invisible Grail: How Brands Can Use Words To Engage with Audiences.
The workshop was ‘The Thing About Words’ – basically using words in advertising. I was a tad dubious at first whether I could stay awake through the whole talk (that is the earliest I have woken up in what feels like forever) but I couldn’t not pay attention – the man is just so darn interesting! John Simmons easily comes up with brilliant sentences that are so nice to quote:
“The trouble with words is that you never know who’s mouth they’ve been in”
“…words are containers of feelings…”
“Be curious. Be a traveller not a tourist. Be open to possibilities.”
Just some of my favourites. Anyhow, Simmons asked us the all important question ‘what is your favourite word’. Is it wrong that I have thought about this at great length? Of course mine was the lovely word cephalopod, but we also found many other great words: pamplemousse, lustrum, pineapple, etc. Did you know Britain’s favourite word is serendipity? How cute! Then we had to do some automatic writing (just basically writing anything that comes into your brain, without editing it) about your favourite word. The end result is very weird. See for yourself.
cephalopods are fun squishy creatures ultimate creators being suppliers of their own ink doodlers with tentacles that write and draw eight times every time finding homes in traveling coconuts that allow them to use the ocean floor as a canvas they mimic other creatures like a living photocopier but with higher quality skin changing colour to suit their enviroment like a soggy cameleon…
See what I mean? We also wrote the opening to a book we know very little about and developed our own imaginary brand based on the random word combinations we came up with in groups. Good times. Personally I found today to be highly entertaining, it felt good to stretch a seldom used creative muscle. John Simmons is a very interesting man (with a fabulous London accent), I hope his writing is as good as his speaking! It most likely is :)
Now then, most importantly; what is your favourite word?
