Many years later, as he faced the firing squad, Colonel Aureliano Buendía was to remember that distant afternoon when his father took him to discover ice. At that time Macondo was a village of twenty adobe houses, built on the bank of a river of clear water that ran along a bed of polished stones, which were white and enormous, like prehistoric eggs. The world was so recent that many things lacked names, and in order to indicate them it was necessary to point.*
*Gabriel García Márquez, One Hundred Years of Solitude
Sometimes a world is so new – and yet so ancient – that things still need to be given a name. The cycle between young and old, big and small, light and darkness appears seamless. Like stars, universes, black holes. And even white holes! (For white-hole enthusiasts – we recommend our ever-dear Carlo Rovelli.)
And so there are always universes, whether fully formed or just born, that demand to be explored anew. Universes where things could have gone better. Universes where things could have been… told better.
Here’s the “white matter” from which Linguistic Direction® is born.
Once a dear friend told us that our articles should have a third language option: Italian, English, paraphrase. Et voilà: a little paraphrase moment. Linguistic Direction® is guiding the expressions of brands, companies, and corporations through the most powerful tool we have: words. It is a founding act, because it sets the rules for using them, not just as marketers, but as human beings. Because every human relationship is mediated by language, or by some kind of it. It’s internal communication, culture, and training. It’s external communication, falling in love, and storytelling.
Like all great ideas, at one point it didn’t exist. Then we invented it. And like great ideas – and the really silly ones – it’s simple. Very simple. Linguistic, Direction®. How on earth is it possible that no one thought about it!?
(Hi! I’m the founder… Trust me, when I realized it wasn’t there – neither in the polytropic London on its wild, chiseled island, not even in the brilliant USA, which invented a couple of things about marketing, yeah – I thought it was best to patent it. And that’s exactly what we did. Linguistic Direction®. Direzione Linguistica®.) Excuse the founder. Her main character syndrome.
As we were saying: Linguistic Direction® can be incredibly useful for you, even to unify areas of communication that have traditionally been treated in a schizoid way. Like internal and external comms (after all, aren’t those insiders stakeholders too?). Like B2B and B2C stuff (since B2Bs are still buyers, aren’t they?). Like product-oriented communication and institutional communication (because doesn’t a product influence culture?). In our view, at the dawn of 2024 we should all keep this little thing called Linguistic Direction® very close in our pocket. Sure, we’re biased, but trust us, the wave that’s putting words back at the center is only just beginning. Inclusive communication. Foreign neologisms. The enigmatic Generation Z. The craved cultural impact. The bold, assertive communication.
And while we speak about it, 750,000 new stars were born.
PAUSE: PARAPHRASE.
Let’s start – as every good story does – from the beginning. Linguistic Direction® was born shortly after the founding of Remida, yet it had long resonated in its practices and methods, and even earlier in the mind of its founder. Because for the past decade – especially since the social media explosion – we have repeatedly been told that images are enough to communicate, with text merely playing second fiddle. And yes, we don’t agree.
An image is sure a form of communication, surely capable of evoking an emotional and cognitive response, conscious… or more often, unconscious. Long story short, an image can be interpreted however one wishes. But the writing… well, the writing is a different matter: it tells a message – directly, unmistakably so.
An image without a copy is a (nice?) suggestion, but a copy without an image is already a message. So, after ten years with the silver medal, it was time to take language back at its proper place. It is a medium far more powerful than we think. Linguistic Direction® starts right here: from the need to take better care of something that has been riskily put on the background. And if there is – and there must be – a creative direction, then there should also be a Linguistic Direction®. To bring language back to conscious use, to properly use the weapon all of us possess.
It’s holistic, too, and modular. Only Linguistic Direction® can operate on multiple communicative levels, layered both within and beyond a company’s culture. Within, guiding the relationships among the people who inhabit it. Beyond, propagating its narratives into the world.
Remida wants you to do many wonderful things.
It might sound obvious, but if you think about it, that’s exactly what needs to be done. Right? Connecting companies with their people. Aligning strategies with beauty. Achieving goals through one of the noblest tools: as always, language. So, what do you think? Write to us at supernova@remidastudio.com. And in the meantime, 1,500,000 new stars have already been born.
