Proper Names - Definition

Dominic, #7, in answer to my comment "Mmmm, that's a very weak argument." you answered:-

"Obviously, I don't think so. I think you would have been able to recognise the word even if there hadn't been media coverage of the deisgn - I certainly did."

Well, you would need to have heard of London and the fact that it is hosting the 2012 Olympics. It isn't really a good precedent if it is reliant on the public having a certain amount of existing knowledge. What if it was a logo for a new company called, say, Locon? And they displayed their name as locon?

This Tschichold fella. I still don't understand how you could get rid of capitals. Perhaps the German language has too many, I don't know, but how can you get rid of them all? You'd have to have some other method of giving text order and making it easy to read. Can you imagine my text here with absolutely no capitals? It would look a right mess!!!!! (Hey ..... carefull now!).

Dominic, #7, quote:-

"It's not a case of not "celebrating capitals"; rather it's precisely a case of designers "us[ing] their imaginations a bit more and tak[ing] advantage of what is there, waiting to be used"."

Hee hee, good attempt at using my words against me. But, the way I see things must be different to most other people because when I see a word that does not have an initial capital I just do not see a proper name. Through my eyes the two go together, they cannot be separated. No capital, no proper name (noun), therefore I do not see a lower case letter 'waiting to be used'. It's like giving a sports car a tractor engine (that's waiting to be used) and calling that 'using your imagination'. I see it as 'dumbing down' and going against the definition, just as lower case letters are 'dumbing down' and going against the definition. The fact of the matter is that a sports car does not have a tractor engine, and as soon as it is given one it ceases to be a sports car. Just as a proper name does not have a lower case letter, and as soon as it is given one it ceases to be a proper name.

I see no similarity between the extra capitalisation in 'InDesign' and the decapitalisation in 'london'. 'InDesign' is a proper name, and they have given it an intitial capital letter, that is all that is required for the word to be a proper name. The fact that it has another capital within the word I don't see as breaking rules to such an extent as 'london' does. 'InDesign' is the two words 'In' and 'Design' joined together. If they were separated, the word 'Design' would have a capital would it not? All they've done is join the two together, I don't see that as a serious rule break. It still looks like a proper name to me. Now if they had capitalised another letter, as in 'IndEsign', now that would be very weird. That looks as weird as 'london'. They both look like gobledegook.

My point is you can bend the rules to a certain extent for art's sake, but I think there are boundaries, and I see this as being a boundary (just as a pile of bricks and an unmade bed is going beyond that artistic boundary), the breaking of which I do not consider very imaginative.

>Mmmm, that's a very weak argument.

Obviously, I don't think so. I think you would have been able to recognise the word even if there hadn't been media coverage of the deisgn - I certainly did. So, if someone can understand a proper noun in lowercase in the typeface chosen, then that for me is sufficient reason for it to be considered as an option in the design process. It's not a case of not "celebrating capitals"; rather it's precisely a case of designers "us[ing] their imaginations a bit more and tak[ing] advantage of what is there, waiting to be used". Only you want to restrict their imaginations and not let them take advantage of the design possibilities inherent in lowercasing words that we are used to seeing capitalised. I really don't see how you can accept unconventional capitalisation like "InDesign" but not "london". To me, that's just plain illogical. I think you should heed your own advice and "loosen up".

>WHY would you want to get rid of capitals?

At that time, Tschichold was enthusiastically advocating the New Typography, which stressed efficiency and celebrated the possibilities of new technology. He championed the use of the sans serif face and suggested dropping capitals, which in German were used for all (most?) nouns (I presume they still are). Even though he later stepped back from some of his proclamations, that early work is still seen as ground-breaking and expert typesetting. He was one who was truly able to use his imagination and wasn't scared of breaking rules in the search for good typography.

Dominic, #2 quote:-

"You may not like the London logo (I've not seen it myself), but you obviously were in no doubt what it meant, so I don't really see the problem."

Mmmm, that's a very weak argument. There are unusual circumstances that mean I understand the text on that logo. Not every logo has such media coverage. But surely, shouldn't we be celebrating capitals, like the ancient monks did? There's so much design potential in a capital letter, I wish designers would loosen up, use their imaginations a bit more and take advantage of what is there, waiting to be used. That's another reason why I think it's a bad design. It's lazy, it's a 'don't care' attitude. It's not using your designer's talent.

Here's the London Olympics logo:-

http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/other_sports/olympics_2012/6718243.stm

How such a logo (even animated), or any logo, can cost £400,000 (twice the price of a 3 bedroom house around these parts last time I looked) is totally beyond my understanding. I'm still waiting for an itemised explanation for such a price, and how such a large portion of the Olympic budget could be used in such a way.

Dominic, #2 quote:-

" ... wasn't Tschichold part of that movement to get rid of capitals in German?"

Gee whizzo! How the heck would that work? How, and what is more to the point, WHY would you want to get rid of capitals?

I think it's all a matter of boundaries. We all have our different boundaries and to me this is going beyond those boundaries in the name of art. I have no problem with 'InDesign', that looks perfectly acceptable to me, it just looks like two separate words joined together, but if they had used 'indesign' then I would have a problem. That is going too far for artistic form and it just doesn't work.

Someone else sometime ago mentioned that guy EE Cummings who writes his name as ee cummings and my answer was 'good job his first name wasn't Ian' (ie cummings), or his second name George (eg cummings) :)

Also, through my eyes the lower case use for proper names actually looks awfull. We have a retail company here in the UK called Halfords and some years ago they changed the way they displayed their name to 'halfords' (on an orange background) and I think it looks absolutely terrible. Makes me crindge every time I see it.

To be fair though, every now and again I do see a logo that uses lower case and it does look good (can't think of any right now), but that's very rare, and I feel it would have looked even better if they had been more adventurous with the available capitals. To my way of thinking, the lower case use in both proper names and titles is a 'cop out', and not really a very good design.

I also have no major objection to brandnames using internal capitalisation (like InDesign), which violate the traditional rules of capitalisation, but I do tend to agree with Bringhurst about resisiting the "private ownership" of words. (I wish he'd gone into more detail on that point.) This is why I would change ee cummings to EE Cummings.

I've since looked at that Olympics logo and realised I had seen it before (when it first came out and got a lot of bad press). I don't like it myself, but it's not because of the lowercase L.

It's one thing to get rid of capitals on proper names in running text, and a completely different thing to do it in a logo. I am a stickler for good grammar in general, but I'm not going to worry about doing a logotype that uses all lower case.

Cheers,

T

Doesn't bother me. In text, yes, I am a stickler for grammar, but in a logo or similar design situation I am far more flexible. You may not like the London logo (I've not seen it myself), but you obviously were in no doubt what it meant, so I don't really see the problem. (By the bye, wasn't Tschichold part of that movement to get rid of capitals in German? Not quite the same thing, I know, but equally distressing to some at the time, I'm sure.)

Yep, it annoys me too. One of those form/function debates I suppose, but in my experience in advertising at least, you kind of miss the point when you throw function under the bus in favor of form.