Will Leben’s study of how sounds could convey physical properties was very interesting and it made me think about how true it is. One question that was asked to students in the study is which word was faster: “fip” or “fop”. I immediately thought that “fip” was the faster one and the consensus that Leben found was the same. Just the way that the sound is created in the mouth gave it a physical weight, and that way of thinking led to the creation of many names that used sounds to convey ideas. The “S” in Swiffer is another example, where the fast sound conveys speed and ease. When I stop to think about it a little, it’s something that’s so simple and very effective and it’s one aspect of design that I never thought about that holds so much power. Coming up with a good name is hard, as Margaret Wolfson states, and it really is a process that can take up lots of time and energy. I read that Anthony Shore would come up with roughly 1,200 names for one project. That’s insane, and he’s just one person. Larger companies probably have a tremendous amount of names on standby, and that’s amazing.

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