Designing with Words
Ein Sim
Designing with Words is a project that explores how language shapes the way we understand brands. Rather than treating language as a neutral tool for communication, the project positions it as a core design element—one that shapes meaning, builds identity, and guides perception. It draws attention to how branded language functions across both visible and hidden layers of experience.
Designing with Words is structured around three books: Identifying Words, Key Words, and Hidden Words. Each book focuses on a different aspect of marketed language. The first book, Identifying Words, focuses on how language expresses brand identity through a curation of slogans and product descriptions. Key Words explores the weight of a single word through repetition and association to reinforce meaning. By isolating a single word and tracing its presence across various brands, it reveals how certain terms gain recognition and trust through its association. Hidden Words brings attention to the subtle and often ignored text embedded in fine print that shapes user experience and expectation. By enlarging and reformatting specific points in these discrete texts, the book exposes the contrast between the polished front-facing language and the guarded, technical backend of branding. Ultimately, my thesis highlights that branding begins not with visuals but with language, because it is through words that a brand becomes most clearly defined, understood, and remembered.