Proper Names - Definition

[_Richard_Archer-Jones_]

I would like to mention something about this fashion of giving proper names and titles small initial letters. It looks absolutely awfull through my designers eyes. Is it not true that in the written word a proper name is defined by a capital letter? Otherwise, how would you know if it was a proper name or not? Therefore, does it not follow that if a written word does not have a capital letter it cannot by definition be a proper name?

Therefore, in such cases as that rubbish and ludicrously expensive 2012 London Olympics logo the word 'london' on the logo is actually just gobbledygook because without a capital letter it cannot be a proper name and as far as I know there is no such word as 'london'. The only way it could be a proper name is if the first letter was a capital 'i', but is there such a place as Iondon (pronounced 'Eye-ondon')? And if there is, what Olympics are being held there in 2012?

You have to have some way of defining a proper name otherwise confusion can be the result. Example:-

1. We came across a Ford in the road.
2. We came across a ford in the road.

I consider the ignoring of grammer to such an extent as this to be not justified by 'artistic liscense'. It is a poor design that does so in my opinion.

[_Richard_Archer-Jones_]

Gosh, there's got to be a limit to the amount of postings a thread can take. One of these days the host is going to step in with "Stop! Stop! I can't take anymore! This thread's about to blow!" :)

Meanwhile .....

>I don't think you can "bend" the rule of capitalization for proper nouns (and I haven't claimed that you can), because it is a very simple, black-and-white rule (which is why I think the pregnancy analogy is appropriate).

This is a very strange statement for an artist to make. Most rules are black and white in nature are they not? I thought you agreed with artistic license and the bending of rules for such a cause. Pray do tell, are there no rules you think can be 'bent' for art's sake? Or is it a case of you consider you cannot bend the rules (or perhaps this one specifically) at all? They are either broken or not, and artistic license therefore involves breaking rules, not bending them?

>Perhaps you could tell us what those limits are and who set them? Or is it really just a case of what Richard Archer-Jones likes is acceptable and what he doesn't is exceeding the limits?

But art is subjective is it not? Of course those limits are Richard Archer-Jones's limits. I have given my limits, and my reasons, based on aesthetics and grammar.

>1. You have said that you can ensure correct spelling when you want to (eg, for finished pieces of art). 2. Your posts here contain numerous spelling mistakes. 3. Thus, I inferred that you didn't want to ensure that the spelling was correct in these posts, and I would have thought that that was a deliberate decision.

Well, I've been using the spell checker everytime (forgot once) since you pointed it out to me. If there are still spelling mistakes then it is going to take me even longer to answer your posts than it already does. From your analysis the conclusion doesn't necessarily follow that I don't want to correct my spelling. It could be that I want to but just haven't got the time (it takes me long enough as it is). It seems to me we are getting back into doggy ground again here, like the 'most' argument.

>Treating the first letter in a distinct way would also indicate that the words are special.

Well, personally, repeat, personally I don't think it would. There's still no capitals involved, and as far as I recall it's only capitals that can indicate a proper name. It's like dying our queen's (God bless her) hair gold instead of giving her a crown. She'd certainly look distinctive, poor thing, and people might consider her special (or nuts), but I don't think she would consider that much compensation for a crown. What d'ya think Heather? :)

You see, give a word a coloured first (lower case) letter and I think people would just wonder "Why's that first letter a different colour?". I don't think they would conclude "Ah, that must be a special word, it must be a proper noun".

>Which is precisely why I (and others here) have no problems with the use of lowercase under discussion. Context is always relevant.

Yes, but what's the point? What's the point in making the viewer rely on context and not using one of the few means of expression that the written language has over the spoken word?

You are right, the spoken word has no way of indicating a proper name and yet we seem to get along alright with that deficiency. Sometimes confusion can occur and I'm sure some jokes rely on such confusion, but how does that affect the written word? They are two different methods of communication and speech can convey many things that the written word cannot, but in this case the written word has the advantage. Why ignore that advantage?

Heck, I'm not doing a very good job of keep my posts short am I? Sorry folks, I just can't help myself.

[Neil_Keller]

Richard,<br />>One of these days the host is going to step in with "Stop! Stop! I can't take anymore!<br /><br />Unless the responses here turn south, or you two get tired of the back-and-forth, the topic can go on and on and on and on and....<br /><br />Some topics have continued for many hundreds of posts.<br /><br />Neil <g>

[_Dominic_Hurley_]

>This is a very strange statement for an artist to make.

Why? Are artists not supposed to be able to understand the concept of a rule? (By the bye, I'm not an artist and I've never described myself as one. I'm not even a designer. I'm a typesetter.)

>I thought you agreed with artistic license and the bending of rules for such a cause.

I don't have a problem with people breaking rules, depending on context. Specifically here, I don't have a problem with people designing logos using lowercase instead of an initial capital ("london", "halfords") or using capitals within a word ("iPod"). But I'm not trying to pretend that one or both of these don't break the rule about correct capitalisation, because they both do.

>They are either broken or not, and artistic license therefore involves breaking rules, not bending them?

In this case, yes.

>It could be that I want to but just haven't got the time

That still implies a deliberate decision (ie, not to check the text) on your part.

>There's still no capitals involved, and as far as I recall it's only capitals that can indicate a proper name.

(Only *initial* capitals, according to the norms of English capitalisation.) I was just trying to establish what "some indication that those words are special" could encompass.

>Yes, but what's the point? What's the point in making the viewer rely on context and not using one of the few means of expression that the written language has over the spoken word?

Simple - for effect. That result might be purely aesthetic or it might rely on some kind of visual pun or it might even have been done just to provoke a reaction. In terms of getting your brand out there and noticed, any or all of these are justified, and they all utilise the difference between the written word and the spoken word - namely, the former's visual nature. We're talking here about logos, not formal essays. If a logo isn't distinctive and memorable, it's not serving its purpose, and (as I've previously noted) the Olympics logo has certainly lodged itself in your brain, so it's worked as far as you're concerned.

>Of course those limits are Richard Archer-Jones's limits.

Okay, so your previous statement was really saying "BUT ..... as I've stated many times, Richard Archer-Jones has set a limitation to bending the rules for art's sake, and *that* is what this thread is supposed to be about." Well, if you just want to pontificate on your view of acceptable design, write a blog. If you post on a public forum, expect to be challenged on your statements and expect the thread to wander.

Here's a couple more questions for you: if someone came to you to do some work with a predesigned lowercase logo (or with something that transgressed another of your limits), would you refuse to work on it? And how do you feel about unicase fonts?

[Neil_Keller]

If I may step in for a moment with a point of view...
>if someone came to you to do some work with a predesigned lowercase logo

Interesting question, and I'd like to offer my take...although the answer should be pretty easy for most experienced designers. Unless you, as designer, are also being paid to redesign the mark, or you're quite comfortable financially, it's a commercial design assignment, and that's what you're trained to do to put food on the table. You put personal feelings aside, do the job to the client's pleasing (even if not to yours), take the check and move on.

On the other hand, if the job is to promote, say, a political candidate, religious doctrine, medical or environmental process that goes against your beliefs; or if you feel that the client will be difficult to work with or you will not be able to get a fair fee for the job, you should feel free to walk away.

Neil

[_Richard_Archer-Jones_]

>That still implies a deliberate decision (ie, not to check the text) on your part

There are many deliberate decisions we have to make that involve not doing what we want.

>Okay, so your previous statement was really saying "BUT ..... as I've stated many times, Richard Archer-Jones has set a limitation to bending the rules for art's sake, and *that* is what this thread is supposed to be about."

Do you really think there are actually no limits at all? No limits before the bending or breaking of rules for art's sake just becomes farcical, and takes it into the poor category? In fact, is no art poor?

>Well, if you just want to pontificate on your view of acceptable design, write a blog.

Sorry, blogs are beyond me at the moment. I have a vague idea what they are but not sure.

>If you post on a public forum, expect to be challenged on your statements and expect the thread to wander.

You've lost me on this one. Why would I not expect to be challenged on my statements or not expect the thread to wonder on a public forum? And why would such a thing not also happen on a blog (whatever one of them is)?

>Here's a couple more questions for you: if someone came to you to do some work with a predesigned lowercase logo (or with something that transgressed another of your limits), would you refuse to work on it? And how do you feel about unicase fonts?

Oh I would do the job. As much as I consider it's a poor design I wouldn't jeapordise my job for such principles (but I might do for such principles as Neil suggests). As for unicase fonts (I presume a unicase font only has one case, as opposed to the word 'unisex' which is ridiculously taken to mean both sexes), well, just as I can't see the point in lower case proper nouns I can't see the point in such fonts. The reasons that you state as 'the point' don't work for me for the reasons I have stated. If they do work in certain designs for the target market well, so be it. I still think it's a poor design though, and I'm not sure you can be certain capitals wouldn't also have worked in such cases.

> ....... and (as I've previously noted) the Olympics logo has certainly lodged itself in your brain, so it's worked as far as you're concerned.

Mmmm ..... do you really call that 'worked'? Does the saying 'Any publicity is good publicity' always work? I think we're back to this 'limits' thing again. I don't see how it can be considered to have 'worked' if I think the London Olympics logo text is poor. By that reasoning the whole logo itself can be considered to have 'worked' because I think it's poor. How does that reasoning work? Is there any point in producing good art anymore?

[_Richard_Archer-Jones_]

Hey, I've just seen Neil's post (don't know why but missed it before), Msg 73:-

>Unless the responses here turn south, or you two get tired of the back-and-forth, the topic can go on and on and on and on and....

Whey hey!!!! Hold onto your hats folks .... here we go!!!

No, I'll try my best to bring it to a close, really I will.

[_Dominic_Hurley_]

>There are many deliberate decisions we have to make that involve not doing what we want.

Well, since this particular digression was about whether your decision not to use the spell checker or a dictionary or to proofread your posts was deliberate, I take it from your comment above that it was indeed deliberate.

>Do you really think there are actually no limits at all? No limits before the bending or breaking of rules for art's sake just becomes farcical, and takes it into the poor category? In fact, is no art poor?

That's begging the question - you're assuming that I agree with you that breaking the rules makes poor art. So, let's be clear: I don't agree with you on that. Actually, I don't even agree with you that designing is art. As I've said before, if you want to discuss art criticism, find an appropriate forum. This is a typography forum. (I've said in the past that I considered some typesetting could be considered art, but these days I just regard it as a craft.) As far as branding or logo design goes, if it's not serving its purpose, it fails as a brand or logo. (But even that doesn't mean that it's necessarily without aesthetic merit.)

>Why would I not expect to be challenged on my statements or not expect the thread to wonder on a public forum?

I don't know why you wouldn't expect to be challenged on your views, but that's the impression I've got from your posts, and comments like "shouldn't we be discussing the use of lower case for proper names?" and that "*that* is what this thread is supposed to be about" seem to me to be expressing a desire to limit the scope of the thread. (Incidentally, "expect the thread to wonder" could be considered gobbledegook by your standard of not relying on context, but because I believe context is always relevant, I was easily able to understand it. In other words, what is gobbledegook to one person is perfectly clear to another.)

>As for unicase fonts ... I can't see the point in such fonts.

For a designer, I do think you impose too many limits on yourself.

>If they do work in certain designs for the target market well, so be it. I still think it's a poor design though, and I'm not sure you can be certain capitals wouldn't also have worked in such cases.

Any number of designs may work, but they would likely all convey slightly different impressions. For example, Halfords may have gone for all lowercase because they found it more lighthearted, irreverent, and less formal than using either a capital "H", all capitals, or a cap and small caps. Quite possibly, they tested a number of options and this is the one that best conveyed the image they wanted.

>I don't see how it can be considered to have 'worked' if I think the London Olympics logo text is poor.

I'm not saying it's worked because it's poor - I'm saying it worked because you understood what it meant and you found it memorable, for whatever reason. Also, you may well have given it wider exposure by discussing it here and (assuming this is not the only place you've raised the issue) by talking about it among your friends and colleagues.

>Is there any point in producing good art anymore?

As I said above, I don't regard logos as art - they are a commercial tool and I think you're missing the point by rating them solely by whether they meet your (somewhat selective) standards of grammar.

Here's another question for you (prompted by an article in the paper): How would you treat "iPod" or "iPhone" when it's at the start of a sentence? Would you follow the rules of sentence capitalisation "IPods are selling well this year" or do you think it's okay to break that rule if you like the result? ("iPods are selling well this year.") And how about if you had to set the word in caps and small caps? Do you find IP OD acceptable?

[Neil_Keller]

Dominic,
>Would you follow the rules of sentence capitalisation

Interestingly that very same point came up for the design firm I worked for, perhaps 35 years ago. A client at the time had the last name "de Bary". We had to design a brochure for his company of the same name. There were several instances where sentences started with his name. We discussed it at length, and in the end decided to preserve the integrity of the name, rather than sentence structure convention.

Neil

[_Herb_V_B_]

There is a standard way of dealing with such things as sentences that
start with a word that begins with a mandatory lower case letter -
recast the sentence to avoid the problem.

Sure, that begs the question, but it prevents hitting readers with
something that will cause a mental interruption.

- Herb

[_Dominic_Hurley_]

The newspaper story I mentioned went the other way - they wrote "IPhone", which looked very strange but was the logical consequence of trying to enforce standard capitalisation on trademarks. In that case, they respected neither the trademark nor conventional capitalisation.

[Neil_Keller]

Dominic,

Actually, in retrospect, the paper's solution is quite funny -- and for the reasons you cite.

Neil

[Neil_Keller]

Herb,

In my particular case, we just couldn't change so much as a comma. The client wrote it and gave instructions not to edit it in any way.

Neil

[_Dominic_Hurley_]

As Neil indicates, editing text is not always an option, and I do like the fact that the paper in this case didn't shy away from the issue. I may not like their solution (and I'm not even sure what I would have done), but at least they faced the problem head on.

[Vernox]

Time to weight in again, this time on "unicase" type.

First off, they are "uncial" letterforms, and they have a very deep history. Broadly speaking, they long predate the majuscules and minuscules that evolved to become our uppercase and lowercase letterforms. If you were a scribe in the 5th century, it's the form you would use. They had disappeared from common use by the time moveable type came along, but entered typography in the 19th century for historical work.

The 20th century saw a revival of sorts, in step with the general examination of type and typography of the period. Much like blackletter faces they all have a very strong presence that makes them more useful for display than running text.

While uncial historically was unicameral (one case), the most commonly seen uncial today has an upper and lower case (American Uncial, by Victor Hammer, just after WWII)

I now return you to your regular programming.

Yours
Vern

Edit: After reading the post again, I see that the question was not about uncial type, but rather (presumably) fonts with only an upper or lower case, not both. In which case, free history lesson. ;-)

Vern

[_Dominic_Hurley_]

>I see that the question was not about uncial type, but rather (presumably) fonts with only an upper or lower case, not both.

I actually meant those fonts that mix typically upper and lower case forms to produce an alphabet of even height. See, for example, the unicase stylistic set of Thomas's own Hypatia Sans.

[Vernox]

Ahh, the age of my book learning is starting to show I guess. Wasn't even aware of the term unicase until just now.

Yours
Vern

[_Richard_Archer-Jones_]

Sorry, haven't got time at the moment to answer your post fully Dominic, and won't have this week, but I had to join in with your interesting question about 'iPod' starting a sentence. Yes, good one, I hadn't actually thought about that problem. 'iPod' (see, there's my answer already) is a logo and I don't think you can change logos (don't know whether I should be placing inverted commas around it all the time though). Also, just as I can accept it as representing a proper name so can I accept it as starting a sentence. At least it looks more acceptable at the beginning of a sentence than 'ipod'.

>I actually meant those fonts that mix typically upper and lower case forms to produce an alphabet of even height.

You mean 'unicase' doesn't actually mean unicase? It has the same fault in its meaning as 'unisex'?

I think 'unisex' actually means unistyle, so likewise 'unicase' actually means uniheight. Crumbs, why do some people insist on making life more confusing than it actually is? (In this case I don't mean you Dominic).

Neil, that is a mighty tough problem you had there with 'de Bary' and right now I don't know what my solution would be. I will have a think about it.

[Neil_Keller]

Richard,

At the time, it was considered the same way as your own "iPod" solution. I don't see it any differently. It might be interesting to see how Apple treats it.

Neil

[_Dominic_Hurley_]

>You mean 'unicase' doesn't actually mean unicase?

No, it means exactly what it says - it is a font with only one case, though the design of the glyphs borrows from the forms typically used for lowercase and uppercase. My previous post wasn't accurate - while all the glyphs usually have the same height, on reflection there's no reason they have to. (None that I'm aware of, that is. Maybe Thomas could comment.) Using such a font, you cannot capitalise words in the accepted sense. I guess you could increase the point size of a letter, but that would seem to me to defeat the point of using such a font in the first place.

Since I mentioned Hypatia Sans, I should point out that the unicase alphabet is only one of many stylistic sets and the font has normal uppercase and lowercase alphabets too.

[Thomas Phinney]

Amazingly, I happened to read that post (after skipping the previous 40 or so).

I think Dominic understands unicase well enough. I would have thought it was a requirement for all the glyphs to have the same height, but I can's swear to it. Peignot has a kind of unicase lowercase, and does have some height variations within it, but it seems to be an exception. Certainly when I did unicase alternates for Hypatia Sans, I made them all the same height, but borrowed letterforms from both the small caps and lowercase.

Cheers,

T

[_Richard_Archer-Jones_]

Hello, I'm back.

>Well, since this particular digression was about whether your decision not to use the spell checker or a dictionary or to proofread your posts was deliberate, I take it from your comment above that it was indeed deliberate.

Gosh, I'm getting lost here ..... Has anyone got a spare brain they're not using? Mine's knackered !!!!! :)

Right, first thing, I do use the spell checker and I do proof read my posts. Before I started using the spell checker I didn't notice it so I don't think it can be called a deliberate decision not to use it. It could be called a deliberate decision not to have checked my words with a dictionary but the initial spelling mistakes themselves I think could be called an accident, or at least nondeliberate ..... but ...... as you noted, this is a digression. I've hunted back through our posts to find the origin of this debate and I think it stems from my statement in Post 58:-

"Incidentally, I still fail to see the connection between my accidental bad spelling on this forum and the deliberate use of incorrect grammar in a finished work of art."

Has that been answered somewhere amongst the mass conglomeration of words permeating this thread?

>Actually, I don't even agree with you that designing is art.

Mmmm, did I state or imply such a thing? Perhaps I did. That subject perhaps needs a thread of its own.

>..... find an appropriate forum. This is a typography forum.

Oh cripes, you mean I've placed this thread on the wrong forum? Don't tell me I'm gonna have to start all over again somewhere else. Nooooooo!!!

>I don't know why you wouldn't expect to be challenged on your views, but that's the impression I've got from your posts, and comments like "shouldn't we be discussing the use of lower case for proper names?" and that "*that* is what this thread is supposed to be about" seem to me to be expressing a desire to limit the scope of the thread.

Do you know, I think you'd make a darn good politician. They are excellent at answering questions and sticking to the point (cough).

Sorry, I don't mind a certain amount of wondering but I'm trying to keep these posts short. I think there's folks out there snoring now (and keeping everyone else in the office awake).

>I'm not saying it's worked because it's poor - I'm saying it worked because you understood what it meant and you found it memorable, for whatever reason.

Yes, but the reasons I understood what it meant and found it memorable were .......?

Answer: I've heard of London and I think the logo is poor. It still begs the question 'What's the point in producing good art?'.

Incidentally, I was in London last week, my first proper visit, and it's looking in darn good condition. Wonderfull architecture. Wouldn't like to work and live there though.

>Also, you may well have given it wider exposure by discussing it here ......

Well, if this kind of exposure is good I rest my case. What's the point in good art?

>As I said above, I don't regard logos as art - they are a commercial tool and I think you're missing the point by rating them solely by whether they meet your (somewhat selective) standards of grammar.

I think it's unfair to suggest that my standards are 'somewhat selective' or limited because I actually do have a limit. Of course logos are a commercial tool, but perhaps you could say that about any art or design (where money's involved).

Perhaps what I should do is go back to art school and just slap anything down and see what marks I get. As long I can dream up some fancy explanation for my designs, like 'I'm looking behind the subject' or 'It's a statement on post-modernist life in the 21st century' ..... oh yes .... that's a good one ...... I'm sure they'd buy that one.

[_Dominic_Hurley_]

>but the initial spelling mistakes themselves I think could be called an accident, or at least nondeliberate

Actually, I wasn't referring to the initial mistakes - I was referring to misspellings like "Wonderfull" in your most recent post; that is, misspellings that continued even after you'd been made aware of both the spelling checker and the fact that some people found bad spelling confusing and (in this case) somewhat inconsistent, coming as it was from a person who professes to want to uphold grammatical standards.

>Has that been answered somewhere amongst the mass conglomeration of words permeating this thread?

Many, many times, but I've answered it again, just for you, in the previous paragraph.

>Mmmm, did I state or imply such a thing?

Many, many times. For example, you stated "we are discussing art, not science" in relation to the issue of lowercase in logos.

>Do you know, I think you'd make a darn good politician. They are excellent at answering questions ...

What questions have you asked that I haven't answered? I'll do my best to answer them for you.

>Yes, but the reasons I understood what it meant and found it memorable were .......?

Because you can read English and because it provoked a reaction in you. Yes, I know you'll say you had to have prior knowledge that there was a city called "London", but first off, I don't think that's true - I think most people can understand the word in lowercase and most people are sophisticated enough to recognise the deliberate use of lowercase for proper nouns (you certainly did). And, even if you did need prior knowledge that there was such a city, so what? You also need prior knowledge to understand the Olympics logo.

>Well, if this kind of exposure is good I rest my case. What's the point in good art?

There you go again. We're talking logos here, not art. And the point of logos is to build brand recognition. As far as I'm concerned, that's the criterion for judging whether a logo is "good", not whether it meets with Richard Archer-Jones's approval.

>As long I can dream up some fancy explanation for my designs, like 'I'm looking behind the subject' or 'It's a statement on post-modernist life in the 21st century' ...

Well, that shows you've understood nothing of what I've been saying (which I'd guessed anyway, by the number of times you completely missed my points).

The inescapable fact is that using lowercase in the way we've been discussing invokes a different emotional response in the viewer than using uppercase would. And that's the point (and justification) in using them. I had this reinforced just the other day when I saw that the end credits for a very good TV programme were all in lowercase, which absolutely fitted the tone of the programme (somewhat anti authority figures) and was a nice touch. If you don't understand this concept, perhaps you should go back to art school.

[_Herb_V_B_]

Dominic wrote:

"And, even if you did need prior knowledge that there was such a city,
so what? You also need prior knowledge to understand the Olympics logo."

That's for sure! Did you know that the logo itself consists of the
numerals 2, 0, 1, 2 ? I never saw it until it was pointed out in a
description. They're not the same glyphs as in the London 2012 font
"2012 Headline"

- Herb

[Neil_Keller]

Stepping in for a moment from the sidelines...

>Actually, I wasn't referring to the initial mistakes - I was referring to misspellings like "Wonderfull" in your most recent post; that is, misspellings that continued even after you'd been made aware of both the spelling checker and the fact that some people found bad spelling confusing and (in this case) somewhat inconsistent, coming as it was from a person who professes to want to uphold grammatical standards.

Right or wrong, people judge other people by their spelling accuracy and grammar. Occasional lapses can be overlooked in casual usage. But when these errors are commonplace -- even in places like these Forums -- it casts a negative light on the writer with respect to intelligence and credibility.

As I said, such assessments can be unwarranted. But it's human nature.

Neil

[_Dominic_Hurley_]

>Did you know that the logo itself consists of the
numerals 2, 0, 1, 2 ?

No, I didn't, Herb. I had originally thought one of them was a very stylised version of England (the one with "london" on it), but then I didn't know what the others were. I think I was influenced in thinking this by an old board game I'd seen recently which used a similarly spiky version of New Zealand. I then thought they perhaps represented the boroughs of London (or those that were hosting the games venues, anyway). But I didn't spend much time trying to figure the London logo out (excuse the pun).

(My comment was actually directed at the Olympics rings, and how, even with the correct capitalisation, the London logo would still rely on prior knowledge for it to make sense to anyone. But the hidden figures emphasise that point.)