Mar 12, 2021
In this episode we talk about creativity in language and visual
communication. We published many of the images and logos we mention
on our website, http://wordsactions.blog. Here you
can find the full transcript, too.
In the first part of the episode, Erika mentions the following
study on how colour influences investment decisions:
Chan, C. R., & Park, H. D. (2015). How images and color in business
plans influence venture investment screening decisions. Journal of
Business Venturing, 30(5), 732-748.
Veronika published some of her work on the links between colour and
language in this article:
Koller, V. (2008a). ‘Not just a colour’: Pink as a gender and
sexuality marker in visual communication. Visual Communication,
7(4), 433-461.
Moving on to individual logos, here are the Toblerone bear
and the crest of the city of Bern. Veronika’s research on city
brands, including a categorisation of their logos, was published
as
Koller, V. (2008b). ‘The world in one city’: Semiotic and cognitive
aspects of city branding. Journal of Language and Politics, 7(3),
431-450.
We specifically mention the logos of three places where we live or
were born, resp.: Ghent (Belgium), Dunaszerdahely (Slovakia) and
Stroud (UK). We also discuss what changes in logos and type fonts
can signalise, and Veronika mentions the case of Lancaster
University, which had such a change in 2014. Some fonts can indeed
elicit strong reactions, as evidenced on the website comicsanscriminal.com. The form and
connotations of type fonts were theorised by Theo van Leeuwen:
van Leeuwen, T. (2006). Towards a semiotics of typography.
Information Design Journal, 14(2), 139-155.
For a general interest read, try this book:
Garfield, S. (2010). Just My Type: A book about fonts. London:
Profile Books.
Bernard then reveals a different side of himself when he talks
about the irregular type fonts and idiosyncratic spelling used by
heavy metal bands. At the end of the first part, we talk about
names for a company and Erika mentions a
study showing a correlation between length of a domain name and
visits to a website.
In the interview, Chris Arning mentions, among other works that
have influenced him:
Jakobson, R. (1981). Linguistics and poetics. In Selected Writings.
Berlin: de Gruyter Mouton, pp. 18-51.
In the third part of the episode, we analyse linguistic creativity
on the website visiticeland.com.
This is not an overview website but one to be explored through
interacting with it, so have a look. Erika observed that the
designers seemed to have followed a model developed under the name
of ‘brand linguistics’:
Carnevale, M., Luna, D., & Lerman, D. (2017). Brand linguistics: A
theory-driven framework for the study of language in branding.
International Journal of Research in Marketing, 34(2), 572-591.
The red thread for this episode has been travel. You can take a
flight of fancy and read about the language and semiotics of luxury
destinations here
Thurlow, C., & Jaworski, A. (2012) Elite mobilities: The semiotic
landscapes of luxury and privilege. Social Semiotics, 22(4),
487-516
or learn about Gosia Drewniok’s research on the language branding
of luxury hotels
here – happy travels and see you again for the next
episode.