full transcript

From the Ted Talk by David Carson: Design and discovery

Unscramble the Blue Letters


I like this for a cpluoe of roesans. If you've had any dgisen courses, they would teach you you can't read this. I think you eventually can and, more irapttlnmoy, I think it's true. "Don't mtisake legibility for communication." Just because something's legible doesn't means it communicates. More importantly, it doesn't mean it communicates the right thing. So, what is the message sent before somebody actually gets into the mieatral? And I think that's sometimes an overlooked area.

This is working with Marshall McLuhan. I stayed and wrkeod with his wife and son, Eric, and we came up with close to 600 quotes from Marshall that are just amazing in terms of being ahead of the times, predicting so much of what has happened in the advertising, television, media world. And so this book is called "Probes." It's another word for quotes. And it's — a lot of them are never — have never been published before, and basically, I've interpreted the different quotes. So, this was the contents page originally. When I got done it was 540 pages, and then the publisher, Gingko Press, ended up cutting it down considerably: it's just under 400 peags now. But I decided I liked this cntnetos page — I liked the way it looks — so I kept it. (Laughter) It now has no relevance to the book whatsoever, but it's a nice spread, I think, in there. (leuthagr)

Open Cloze


I like this for a ______ of _______. If you've had any ______ courses, they would teach you you can't read this. I think you eventually can and, more ___________, I think it's true. "Don't _______ legibility for communication." Just because something's legible doesn't means it communicates. More importantly, it doesn't mean it communicates the right thing. So, what is the message sent before somebody actually gets into the ________? And I think that's sometimes an overlooked area.

This is working with Marshall McLuhan. I stayed and ______ with his wife and son, Eric, and we came up with close to 600 quotes from Marshall that are just amazing in terms of being ahead of the times, predicting so much of what has happened in the advertising, television, media world. And so this book is called "Probes." It's another word for quotes. And it's — a lot of them are never — have never been published before, and basically, I've interpreted the different quotes. So, this was the contents page originally. When I got done it was 540 pages, and then the publisher, Gingko Press, ended up cutting it down considerably: it's just under 400 _____ now. But I decided I liked this ________ page — I liked the way it looks — so I kept it. (Laughter) It now has no relevance to the book whatsoever, but it's a nice spread, I think, in there. (________)

Solution


  1. pages
  2. importantly
  3. couple
  4. worked
  5. laughter
  6. material
  7. design
  8. mistake
  9. contents
  10. reasons

Original Text


I like this for a couple of reasons. If you've had any design courses, they would teach you you can't read this. I think you eventually can and, more importantly, I think it's true. "Don't mistake legibility for communication." Just because something's legible doesn't means it communicates. More importantly, it doesn't mean it communicates the right thing. So, what is the message sent before somebody actually gets into the material? And I think that's sometimes an overlooked area.

This is working with Marshall McLuhan. I stayed and worked with his wife and son, Eric, and we came up with close to 600 quotes from Marshall that are just amazing in terms of being ahead of the times, predicting so much of what has happened in the advertising, television, media world. And so this book is called "Probes." It's another word for quotes. And it's — a lot of them are never — have never been published before, and basically, I've interpreted the different quotes. So, this was the contents page originally. When I got done it was 540 pages, and then the publisher, Gingko Press, ended up cutting it down considerably: it's just under 400 pages now. But I decided I liked this contents page — I liked the way it looks — so I kept it. (Laughter) It now has no relevance to the book whatsoever, but it's a nice spread, I think, in there. (Laughter)

Frequently Occurring Word Combinations


ngrams of length 2

collocation frequency
bomb shelter 3
lost pit 3
slide projector 2
couple months 2
graffiti artist 2
william burroughs 2
contents page 2
inch nails 2
real estate 2
ad ran 2
green people 2
pit bull 2

ngrams of length 3

collocation frequency
lost pit bull 2

Important Words


  1. advertising
  2. amazing
  3. area
  4. basically
  5. book
  6. called
  7. close
  8. communicates
  9. communication
  10. contents
  11. couple
  12. courses
  13. cutting
  14. decided
  15. design
  16. ended
  17. eric
  18. eventually
  19. gingko
  20. happened
  21. importantly
  22. interpreted
  23. laughter
  24. legibility
  25. legible
  26. lot
  27. marshall
  28. material
  29. mcluhan
  30. means
  31. media
  32. message
  33. mistake
  34. nice
  35. originally
  36. overlooked
  37. page
  38. pages
  39. predicting
  40. press
  41. published
  42. publisher
  43. quotes
  44. read
  45. reasons
  46. relevance
  47. son
  48. spread
  49. stayed
  50. teach
  51. television
  52. terms
  53. times
  54. true
  55. whatsoever
  56. wife
  57. word
  58. worked
  59. working
  60. world