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Great photos, but maybe a reminder to take care when using foreign characters in one's designs. The Japanese in the top logo splits "noir" into two words, with

Great photos, but maybe a reminder to take care when using foreign characters in one's designs. The Japanese in the top logo splits "noir" into two words, with the effect that a typical reader can guess what's intended but it makes no sense as written.

Figs 8y ago
To be more explicit, 日本=nihon, ノワール=noir. As written "日本ノ"/"ワール" is basically like writing "nihonn"/"oir".
- escherplex 8y ago
  Obviously a typo (why would you post an obvious typo in your header?) But for some etymological fun assume / were の leaving ワール alone, which turns out (check Bing translate or at Monash) to be J-shorthand for the ancient Indian city Haridwar, which in Sanskrit equates to 'Gateway to Lord Vishnu' (Wikipedia) which in turn would leave you with a site header suggesting 'Japan's Gateway to the Lord Vishnu' which probably wasn't what the site author had in mind. :-)
drgvond 8y ago
This is the same as the posters for “Isle of Dogs”, where the juxtaposition of the English words and equivalent kanji is rather strange.
gwilkes 8y ago
I disagree, the intended audience clearly isn't Japanese and splitting the word up gives it visual balance. And using the katakana here is really just for visual effect anyway, it almost doesn't matter what is written there, just that is is something in Japanese. The reverse of this is why we have the sometimes amusing "Engrish" on clothing in Japan. What the English says or is intended to say doesn't matter as much as the fact that it is English, just a stylistic choice.
- mcguire 8y ago
  So, what's your feeling on Año Nuevo State Park?
  - gwilkes 8y ago
    That seems to be correct Spanish, is there something wrong with it? I think the tilde should be removed though now that this is American land. You could preserve the pronunciation somewhat by renaming to Anyo Nuevo State Park. Similar to how was done with the Spanish cañón to the English canyon.
  - gwilkes 8y ago
    Sure, there is a mixture of two languages there but they are both using latin characters so even if you don't know how to pronounce Año correctly you can get close enough knowing only English. If it was called राज्य पार्क State Park then we would be closer to the 日本ノワール Nihon Noir issue we are talking about. राज्य पार्क means State Park in Nepali. Someone who isn't Japanese or hasn't studied Japanese has no chance to read 日本ノワール, to them is is just a visual flourish. If someone decides to use non-latin characters from another language for a visual purpose on their own website for an audience that primarily doesn't understand that language then I believe that they can be freed from the burden of having to ensure that they are using that language in a perfect manner. Should this photographer have contacted a native Japanese speaker to ensure that his title graphic was 100% correct before publishing? I mean maybe, but I think that is asking a bit much for its intended purpose.
    - fenomas 8y ago
      > then I believe that they can be freed from the burden of having to ensure that they are using that language in a perfect manner There's no can/should/must here, it's just a matter of intent - did the author here intend for his logo to not look like gibberish in Japanese? Considering the amount of intention behind everything else, going to the trouble of choosing a title that makes sense in both languages etc., it seems reasonable to guess that he did. In which case he probably should have checked with someone. If he just wanted to toss in whatever looked nice, then naturally correctness doesn't matter. But do you think that's likely to be the case here?

Figs 8y ago

To be more explicit, 日本=nihon, ノワール=noir. As written "日本ノ"/"ワール" is basically like writing "nihonn"/"oir".

escherplex 8y ago
Obviously a typo (why would you post an obvious typo in your header?) But for some etymological fun assume / were の leaving ワール alone, which turns out (check Bing translate or at Monash) to be J-shorthand for the ancient Indian city Haridwar, which in Sanskrit equates to 'Gateway to Lord Vishnu' (Wikipedia) which in turn would leave you with a site header suggesting 'Japan's Gateway to the Lord Vishnu' which probably wasn't what the site author had in mind. :-)

drgvond 8y ago

This is the same as the posters for “Isle of Dogs”, where the juxtaposition of the English words and equivalent kanji is rather strange.

gwilkes 8y ago

I disagree, the intended audience clearly isn't Japanese and splitting the word up gives it visual balance. And using the katakana here is really just for visual effect anyway, it almost doesn't matter what is written there, just that is is something in Japanese. The reverse of this is why we have the sometimes amusing "Engrish" on clothing in Japan. What the English says or is intended to say doesn't matter as much as the fact that it is English, just a stylistic choice.

mcguire 8y ago
So, what's your feeling on Año Nuevo State Park?
- gwilkes 8y ago
  That seems to be correct Spanish, is there something wrong with it? I think the tilde should be removed though now that this is American land. You could preserve the pronunciation somewhat by renaming to Anyo Nuevo State Park. Similar to how was done with the Spanish cañón to the English canyon.
- gwilkes 8y ago
  Sure, there is a mixture of two languages there but they are both using latin characters so even if you don't know how to pronounce Año correctly you can get close enough knowing only English. If it was called राज्य पार्क State Park then we would be closer to the 日本ノワール Nihon Noir issue we are talking about. राज्य पार्क means State Park in Nepali. Someone who isn't Japanese or hasn't studied Japanese has no chance to read 日本ノワール, to them is is just a visual flourish. If someone decides to use non-latin characters from another language for a visual purpose on their own website for an audience that primarily doesn't understand that language then I believe that they can be freed from the burden of having to ensure that they are using that language in a perfect manner. Should this photographer have contacted a native Japanese speaker to ensure that his title graphic was 100% correct before publishing? I mean maybe, but I think that is asking a bit much for its intended purpose.
  - fenomas 8y ago
    > then I believe that they can be freed from the burden of having to ensure that they are using that language in a perfect manner There's no can/should/must here, it's just a matter of intent - did the author here intend for his logo to not look like gibberish in Japanese? Considering the amount of intention behind everything else, going to the trouble of choosing a title that makes sense in both languages etc., it seems reasonable to guess that he did. In which case he probably should have checked with someone. If he just wanted to toss in whatever looked nice, then naturally correctness doesn't matter. But do you think that's likely to be the case here?