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Lost in translation

In countries where English isn't the first language, typographic choices seem to reflect their design communities' skills, says Jack Yan.

At the beginning of the year, Twinpalms Lucire began rolling off the presses. It was another edition for us, but what interested me from a typographical point of view was the use of Neue Helvetica throughout.

Distributed primarily in Phuket, and essentially the magazine of Twinpalms Resort there, it has as its editor and creative director Miguel Kirjon, who was trained in Basel in the Swiss style. The magazine was in a tight grid format that suited the luxury image Twinpalms wanted. Instead of multiple point sizes and leading on a page, Kirjon settled on three, differentiating elements using various weights of Neue Helvetica.

Twinpalms Lucire charted its own course from the beginning, which is something I was delighted about because it meant the product was best suited to the local market. Five years ago my expectation was that one look would suffice globally, but the fact that many publishers have had to tailor their titles' art direction to local sensibilities suggests print magazines remain a fairly regional affair. This may explain just why US television has had to come up with its own version of Kath and Kim, reflecting local tastes. Never mind what judgement we may have over the adaptation.

But Twinpalms Lucire fascinated me from another angle - the fact that it isn't in Thai. When I tell people I publish in other countries, there is often a presumption that it is in the host country's language. But with the tourist market in Phuket being largely Anglophone, it makes sense to remain in English.

Which got me thinking - how do publications look when they aren’t published in that country's first language? The original idea for this came from my earlier trip to Taiwan when I noticed the Taiwan News set in Monotype Bembo for the text with Baskerville for the headlines, when neither really is ideal. Bembo was never designed for newspaper usage, and it's not exactly known for its copy-fitting, an important consideration for newspaper typography. Baskerville, meanwhile, is actually terrible for copy-fitting. It is not as though Taiwan lacks good newspapers with excellent art direction either. Both the Taipei Times and The China Post have made appropriate choices with off the shelf typefaces. The former, in fact, has won international awards for its newspaper design. Yet Taiwan News, despite being a national newspaper that can trace its origins to the China News in 1949, leaves something to be desired typographically.

Hong Kong Tatler is published by Edipresse, a Swiss group, so it is little surprise that the masthead shows an international mixture of names. Graphically, Hong Kong Tatler has none of the restraint of Kirjon's work and, in fact, the look is derivative with Monotype Bembo for the text. Marco Ganz's Berthold Evo, however, in various weights, gives Hong Kong Tatler a bit more originality, and it's not seen that often. Officina Sans appears in the headings and the headlines, are in Linotype Didot. There's nothing wrong with Didot, especially if one still wishes to signal the idea of an establishment publication - it's used with amazing regularity in fashion magazines - in which case Hong Kong Tatler has chosen wisely.

Berthold Evo seems to be popular in the Orient, as with our next title, Simply Her. The Singaporean women's magazine trumped its new look for its January 2008 issue, where Evo is its primary sans serif family. It is FF Danubia, however, that forms the cornerstone of the redesign, for the masthead and for numerous headings inside the magazine. Odd, though it works beautifully, is the use of Microsoft Georgia for the body text.

Simply Her may have a few local celebrities in its pages, but it is meant to be a friendlier, more open magazine than, for example, Vogue. Think of it more as a Singaporean equivalent of New Woman. Typographically, it didn't need to have the same-again feeling of many women's magazines (such as body text in Helvetica, headings in Bodoni or Futura etc.). While English is probably not the first language of most of Singapore's multicultural inhabitants, it is its lingua franca and is more regularly seen there than in, say, Hong Kong.

So what relevance does this have for Australia? It does seem English language publishing is alive and well in Asia, for starters, and Australian designers have a market they can target. As for seeing Europeans using English, there's a lot to be said for sharing inspirations or, from an observer's point of view, seeing if there is indeed some sort of internationalist style emerging among occidentals.

Jack Yan is CEO of Jack Yan & Associates (jya.net) and the publisher of Lucire (lucire.com). His personal blog is at jackyan.com/blog.

**To read the full article grab a copy of the Dec/Jan issue of Desktop - OUT NOW!

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