I was on the phone the other day with a designer I hired to work on a project.

When you talk on the phone — words become even more vital in trying to pin down an abstract image.

We were working to find the right “feel” for yellow on the page — that’s a hard thing to do because light yellow doesn’t “read” on a page and dark yellow quickly becomes orange.

ME:  We need a different yellow.

DESIGNER:  Like a morning pee yellow?

ME:  That’s too dark.

DESIGNER:  Like a kidney infection pee yellow?

ME:  Too cloudy.

DESIGNER:  So a lighter tainting of blood in the urine?

ME:  Let’s try that.

Our similar, shared, experiences give meaning and context to abstract ideas.

Language lives in common crevices.

Describing the crevice reveals how a person relates to the world.