Onomatopoeia was today’s word of the day on www.visualthesaurus.com.

hiccup, zoom, bang, beep, splash!

I love words that sound like their meaning.

quack, bark, roar, meow, whoop!

Why am I writing about this? Well, it is relevant to marketing and design: Onomatopoeia has been used in advertising lots over the years. Snap, crackle, pop springs to mind. And in Art, Whaam (1963) by Roy Lichenstein is a great example.

Onomatopoeia are useful when sound is important to your message, or when you want to create a mnemonic. They can make for really fun, hard hitting copy and headlines. Pow!

Another word springs to mind–Autological.
According to Wikipedia, an Autological word is “An autological word (or homological word, or autonym) is a word that describes itself”

tiny, seventeen-lettered, lowercase, written, red.

So, a homological is the opposite, a non self-descriptive word.

mono-sylllabic, red, misspelled, oral, big.

I think there is potential for some great headlines using Autological or homological words, using some great typography. And using some artistic license, one can start to see more words that look like their meaning.

For example the word bed in lowercase looks a bit like a traditional bed, with the ascenders making the ends. I think CD looks a bit like a Compact Disc.

Then using some nice typography, you can add visual meaning to words to back-up or contradict their meaning, for example, thin set in a  light typeface, or a  bold typeface.

Of course you can go much further with this idea, there have been many designs that use this form of visual link very effectively. Just tucking this away for when the right brief comes along…