Context
Soon after moving to Poland, I noticed that many of the words people speak in daily life are not taught in language schools. The word “pierdolić” in particular caught my attention because it had so many variations and was used in countless situations.
I eventually found out it's a swear word — as versatile and colorful as its English counterpart.
Challenge
Once I started learning Webflow, I decided to try building a website that would showcase all the “pierdolić” variations. It should be clean and well-structured, but above all, I wanted it to be fun — we’re talking about swear words here!
Solution
Of course, the first step was gathering the content itself. I researched all the variations (all with the formula “[prefix]pierdolić”, e.g. “przypierdolić”) and their meaning.
I had established a general creative direction for this project — for example, I wanted to contrast the profanity’s harshness with very gentle and friendly visuals. Also, I knew there would be some grammatical considerations (such as the perfective/imperfective aspects) to address.
I experimented with some rough layout ideas (samples below), merging the content and visual direction into a cohesive website while keeping it within a reasonable level of difficulty to develop.
This is the version I chose to develop:
Typography & Colors
Since it’s a website about words, I knew typography should be front and center — this version takes that literally. I chose a soft yet legible and modern serif for the main attraction, paired with a straightforward geometric (but also legible in small sizes!) font.
As for the colors, I established a palette of pastels for the background, contrasted by a charcoal grey with a luminosity effect in the foreground. This ensured that each word variation would have unique color combinations while maintaining sufficient contrast for legibility.
Layout
Since the root of the word remains constant and only the prefixes change, I decided on an infinite vertical carousel for swapping the prefixes.
The carousel would also greatly simplify the navigation since all words would be displayed on one page, and the only other page would be an About.
The description, examples, and phonetic alphabet were based on dictionary conventions.
As I went deeper into research, I realized there weren’t as many reflexive versions as I expected, so they didn’t need a separate selector.
However, the toggle idea would be perfect for the perfective/imperfective aspect* (pierdalać/pierdolić), which is an important distinction both in form and meaning. In fact, they could be seen as two sides of the same coin, so I inverted the colors to reinforce this visual metaphor.
* this doesn’t exist in English, but using as an example the verb “to eat”, a close approximation would be the difference between “I eat” and “I am eating”.
For the mobile version, I had to simplify the “infinite carousel” into only the prefixes immediately before and after the current view.
Testing
This project was a great example of the importance of testing. After I built it, everything seemed to be working perfectly, so I shared it with a few Polish speakers hoping to validate the content. They did validate the content but also pointed out a few visual and functional issues that needed to be fixed.
I learned that no matter how much you test by yourself, pushing a project into the real world with its myriad users and devices is the most efficient way to expose its flaws.
Award
I submitted this website to the 2024 WaysConf Awards in the Student category (the only option for non-commercial projects) and won the Public Choice with 258 votes, over 3x as many as the second place.
Reflection
This was a very fun project all around — playing with language, design, and technology, learning new skills, building something that makes people smile... What’s not to love?
If I started this project again, I would spend more time exploring more ambitious directions. Maybe going 3D, or making it super dynamic with bold animations? How about making it even more interactive by incorporating a foul-mouthed AI chatbot?
Anyway, I’m quite happy with how this turned out, and most of all, with the positive feedback from total strangers who share my love for the beautiful and complicated Polish language.
