The Dictionary of Creative Nonsense

The authoritative reference for the language of the creative process. Updated after every meeting.

Client to English

The phrase	The actual definition
Make it pop	I don't know what's wrong with it.
Make it bigger	I have no other useful feedback.
Clean it up	I don't like it, but I can't explain why.
Make it modern	I saw something on Apple.com.
Make it premium	Charge more money for it.
Keep it simple	After I finish adding everything.
Think outside the box	But make it look like our competitor.
Creative freedom	Until I see the first draft.
Brand guidelines	Suggestions I can ignore.
Final-final	Definitely not final.
Final-final-REVISED	Still not final.
Quick project	A project with an unreasonable deadline.
Minor revisions	A complete redesign disguised as a favour.
Let's circle back	Nobody made a decision.
Stakeholder feedback	A new round of revisions from people we've never met.
Brand consistency	Whatever we decide it means this week.
AI-generated	We saved twenty minutes and created three hours of clean-up.
Just like the competitor	We would like to be less original.
I know what I like	I don't know why it works.
Can you send the source files?	We may be replacing you shortly.

What we say, and what we're too professional to say.

What we say	What we really mean
"That's an interesting direction."	That's a terrible idea.
"Let's explore that."	Let's find out why that won't work.
"We can certainly try that."	You're going to hate it when you see it.
"That's one approach."	That's the wrong approach.
"We'll take that under consideration."	Absolutely not.
"Let's revisit the brief."	You clearly didn't read it.
"It might be worth considering..."	Please don't make me do this.
"We want to make sure we're aligned."	You're driving in the opposite direction.
"That's outside the original scope."	You're asking us to do more work for free.
"We can make those changes."	There goes another afternoon.
"Let's trust the process."	Please stop interfering with the process.
"We'll provide some additional options."	Apparently, you don't like good design.
"It's a matter of personal preference."	You're wrong, but I can't prove it to you.
"We'll see what we can do."	You're about to find out what we won't do.
"Thanks for the feedback!"	I need a long walk.

The process of making a design worse until everyone agrees it's acceptable.

A carefully developed visual system that the client will eventually replace with a PowerPoint.

Anyone who has ever downloaded Canva.

An elaborate social experiment testing the limits of human patience.

A perfectly good logo that somebody got tired of looking at.

A temporary state of mind.

A deadline created by someone who ignored the previous forty-seven emails.

A tool that makes everyone think they're a designer, and gives actual designers more clean-up work.