I love a good thesaurus. It's a writer's best friend, actually. Which is why I've never understood people who write for a living and seem to have never heard of a thesaurus.
I can understand marketers using the same word over and over again. We've had awful stuff over the years like, "retro-inspired," or "dynamic" and "progressive." Now we've reached peak "emotion" in describing car design. There has to be a better word to describe car design, one that doesn't sound so vague when it's applied to every single design. Emotion is old and tired, automakers, and you need some new words.
On the other hand, J "oppo" Zeke thinks the problem with words like emotion is the people who write about cars, not for cars:
Look, designers like myself know that this claptrap doesn't sell shi*. We use these words so journos have something, anything to latch onto to explain that which often times escapes them.
If LJK Setright, Dan Neil, and Anthony Ffrench-Constant can write the prose that auto writers can aspire to, then look to them for inspiration. In other words, why swallow the marketing pill - write your own interpretation!
Gavin Green (of Car Magazine in the UK) wrote a good piece where he tried to discuss the Lexus LF LC Concept with the designer. He basically put the poor kid in a corner and tried to get some real words out of him - and got nothing. Why? The vast majority of designers have rich worlds in their heads that they express through design tools. Few of us are also particularly verbose. Yes, designers might have wonderful creativity it doesn't mean many of us are budding Frosts or Poes.
So the journo world gets the overused buzzword of the moment. Honestly, I expect some more creativity in writing from the journalist world! I've studied art history, I've created sculpture, and I've tried to write stuff but frankly I'd expect those who write to do a better job of interpreting designer's work and conveying it to the rest of the world.
So to distill this "emotional" plea to its essence: Automotive writers must try harder. Take some art history classes, learn about more creative use of language and do the job of translating designer buzz speak into something that will sell ads. I mean for chrissakes we've done all the hard work for you already!
Noted. And writers still calling every design emotional, get yourselves some new words.
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