full transcript

From the Ted Talk by Paula Scher: Great design is serious, not solemn

Unscramble the Blue Letters

The institutions are seomln, and so is the design. They're better crafted than the Public Theater was, and they spend more money on them, but I think that that momnet comes and goes. The best way to accomplish serious dsgien — which I think we all have the opportunity to do — is to be totally and completely uuiqlaneifd for the job. That doesn't happen very often, but it happened to me in the year 2000, when for some reason or another, a whole pile of different architects started to ask me to design the insides of thetraes with them, where I would take environmental graphics and work them into buildings. I'd never done this kind of work before. I didn't know how to read an areicucttrahl plan, I didn't know what they were tnkliag about, and I really couldn't handle the fact that a job — a single job — could go on for four years because I was used to iedmacmiy in graphic design, and that kind of attention to detail was really bad for somebody like me, with ADD.

Open Cloze

The institutions are ______, and so is the design. They're better crafted than the Public Theater was, and they spend more money on them, but I think that that ______ comes and goes. The best way to accomplish serious ______ — which I think we all have the opportunity to do — is to be totally and completely ___________ for the job. That doesn't happen very often, but it happened to me in the year 2000, when for some reason or another, a whole pile of different architects started to ask me to design the insides of ________ with them, where I would take environmental graphics and work them into buildings. I'd never done this kind of work before. I didn't know how to read an _____________ plan, I didn't know what they were _______ about, and I really couldn't handle the fact that a job — a single job — could go on for four years because I was used to _________ in graphic design, and that kind of attention to detail was really bad for somebody like me, with ADD.

Solution

  1. design
  2. moment
  3. architectural
  4. unqualified
  5. solemn
  6. immediacy
  7. theaters
  8. talking

Original Text

The institutions are solemn, and so is the design. They're better crafted than the Public Theater was, and they spend more money on them, but I think that that moment comes and goes. The best way to accomplish serious design — which I think we all have the opportunity to do — is to be totally and completely unqualified for the job. That doesn't happen very often, but it happened to me in the year 2000, when for some reason or another, a whole pile of different architects started to ask me to design the insides of theaters with them, where I would take environmental graphics and work them into buildings. I'd never done this kind of work before. I didn't know how to read an architectural plan, I didn't know what they were talking about, and I really couldn't handle the fact that a job — a single job — could go on for four years because I was used to immediacy in graphic design, and that kind of attention to detail was really bad for somebody like me, with ADD.

Frequently Occurring Word Combinations

ngrams of length 2

collocation frequency
public theater 4
york times 3
united states 3
solemn design 2
record covers 2
typeface helvetica 2
paul newman 2
city council 2

Important Words

  1. accomplish
  2. add
  3. architects
  4. architectural
  5. attention
  6. bad
  7. buildings
  8. completely
  9. crafted
  10. design
  11. detail
  12. environmental
  13. fact
  14. graphic
  15. graphics
  16. handle
  17. happen
  18. happened
  19. immediacy
  20. insides
  21. institutions
  22. job
  23. kind
  24. moment
  25. money
  26. opportunity
  27. pile
  28. plan
  29. public
  30. read
  31. reason
  32. single
  33. solemn
  34. spend
  35. started
  36. talking
  37. theater
  38. theaters
  39. totally
  40. unqualified
  41. work
  42. year
  43. years