Every workplace has its own particular idiosyncrasies. Whether it’s something about the hierarchy that makes them different, or a propensity for having Nerf gun battles (something we’ve seen first-hand at one of our clients’ offices), or a particularly quirky set of values, there’s always something that sets an organisation apart from everyone else.

Since we’re word people, we quite like our wordy points of difference. So, without further ado, we present to you a brief run-down of our most frequently repeated ‘Inkisms’ – phrases that we come back to in conversation time after time.

The phrases

Ducks in a row

When it comes to planning projects, we’re pretty keen on getting all our ducks in a row, and if you’ve had any meetings with us about long-haul planning and strategy, you’ve probably heard it bandied about. We’re all about that organisation – keeping things tidy in advance means we can have our best creative brains switched on when we’re creating stories!

Have your nice undies on

After all, you never know when you’ll get hit by a bus. Good for literal and metaphorical usage, since we always want to be looking our best – whether in person, on paper or on screen – in case something dire happens.

Playing in the/our sandpit

Sometimes, we’re really toddlers at heart. Except instead of a sandpit we’re feeling possessive of, it’s an industry space. If you’ve got your own ‘sandpit’, you don’t need to try to play in every sandpit, just for fear of missing out. Own that space and really make it yours – don’t step into an area that you’re not so well-versed in.

In terms of

This one’s pretty self-explanatory. We just seem to use it a lot – often as a good way to avoid saying the dreaded “um….”!

So the wheels don’t fall off

Inkisms seem to have a recurring theme of planning things well. This one’s about really making sure that we’ve sussed things out in such a way that nothing falls apart at a crucial moment. Hopefully, if we’ve got all our ducks in a row, the wheels won’t fall off!

No reinventing the wheel

Usually something best avoided. There’s no point re-doing something that someone’s already done well – so we can learn from what’s come before and use it as a launching pad into something even more exciting and invigorating.

Singing from the same song sheet

We like to make sure that we’re looking at a project from the same direction as our client. Ensuring that values and expectations are aligned is a really vital part of making that work. So if we’re singing from the same song sheet, we’re following the same path, and we’re not going to end up out of tune with one another.

The words

There are also a few words that you may notice we toss around quite often – things like ‘lovely’ and ‘fabulous’ – because we’re very fond of making the world a more beautiful place. And telling stories well is a good way to do our part in that process.

The hashtags

We’re communications people, so a foray into the social media sphere needs to be mentioned. Whenever we’re drumming out a particularly glorious photo on our Instagram or Twitter, there’s inevitably a moment of what can we rhyme this time? We’ve been known to highlight seminars with #intelligentthink, delicate rose-tinted things with #intelligentpink, wine glasses with #intelligentdrink and computer stuff with #intelligentsync.

Occasionally, when we’re all rhymed out, we have to think a little broader – so our tagline comes into play. Clever Things With Words becomes #cleverthingswithcake when it’s a treat day – with plenty of potential to play with for future tagging exploits.

So there’s Inkisms 101 – with new Inkers on board, though, we’re excited to see what new directions our language may take.

Kindest (there’s another one!),

The Inkers