Is English the ultimate global language?

I have been working on a five-part blog series for the emc design blog, entitled ‘Is English the ultimate global language?’. It is a bit of a re-visit to my university dissertation, which I mentioned in this previous blog post, but also takes into account our role within the English Language Teaching market.

Parts one and two were published whilst I was in Japan. I had the posts ready beforehand, of course – I didn't do any work whilst I was on holiday! (Although my experiences of English vs. Japanese language and being an English-speaking tourist/traveller are something I'd like to write another emc blog on!)

Part two was about Esperanto and has received an overwhelming amount of attention from some Esperanto speakers out there on the Internet. It's been very interesting. We actually have a guest post coming up as a follow-up to my post, regarding Esperanto.

Post number three went live this week: English – the lingua franca of world transport and part four is scheduled for next week. Part five, the concluding part, I still have to do a bit of work on but hopefully it will conclude the series the following week.

I've now got my own Wordpress account linked to the emc blog so it has been good to be able to publish my own words in my name. Hopefully, I'll be writing lots more in the future.

An emc blogger

Last week I wrote a blog for emc design, which was published this morning – not as an April Fools’ joke! It is on the subject of keyboard shortcuts and you can have a gander at it over here. I’m hoping to do some more blogs for emc as I really enjoy the writing and publishing of my own words and opinions. Which is something that I hope I vaguely get across here on my own blog with my somewhat sporadic posts, although they do tend to be more visually orientated. I am a graphic designer after all and by no means an eloquent writer (not to mention that I spelt ‘eloquent’ incorrectly the first time).

I am planning on re-versioning and updating my university dissertation for a future emc blog. I feel some of the subject matter is very relevant to the ELT (English Language Teaching) industry – which is what we predominantly work in. If you can’t remember or, probably more likely that you, don’t know what my dissertation topic was – it was over two years ago:

Transport, tourism and cross-cultural signage
How an increase in world transport and tourism has created a greater demand for concise cross-cultural signage: The boundaries and relationship between language, culture, visual communication and navigation.

You can read the original here on Issuu if you fancy it or simply wait for the time when I’ve written the new [shorter] version for the emc blog. I think it will also be appropriate for me to write some kind of post-Japan blog for emc, considering language differences etc. Watch this space… or more importantly, the emc blog space. And Twitter too.

Pictogram headlines

I really ought to do a pictogram project after writing a dissertation on cross-cultural signage, with a large part being on pictograms I am fairly knowledgable on the subject.

These pictogram interpretations of newspaper headlines, by Stephen McCarthy, are brilliant. And very inspiring at that. Sadly he's not doing a headline a day any longer but it was a great idea. This project posted on Creative Review is also great, and what led me to these.

DOWNTURN BRITAIN: As the nation faces a new recession, Tory PM
Cameron ignores pain of real people and offers NO hope and NO answers

AT LAST WE GET VOTE ON EUROPE 

WAR ON THE PIG SOCIETY: Miliband targets snout-in-trough bankers

BUY! BUY! BUY! Tesco launch £500m price war in shopping bonanza

aheadlineaday.tumblr.com

Dissertation. Done.

Olympic non-events

The clever people at Hat-Trick Design have come up with these amusing Olympic non-events. I thought it was worth posting as I've been working on my dissertation (all day long) and there's a section in that about the Olympics, not to mention the fact that these are pictograms.

Lifting a finger

Throwing your weight around

Jumping the queue

Shooting yourself in the foot

Throwing a wobbly

Wrestling with your conscience

"Throughout the course of the 2012 Olympic fortnight, an alternative programme of events will be taking place in offices and homes across London. While these events enjoy no official status, they represent some of the most popular participation sports in the UK. This blog is an attempt to recognise and honour these under-appreciated events through a system of practical iconography."olympic-non-events.tumblr.com

The Noun Project

The Noun Project is such a great idea, and so relevant to my dissertation it's unbelievable. Definitely will be referenced as something very current.

Basically: "The Noun Project collects, organizes and adds to the highly recognizable symbols that form the world's visual language, so we may share them in a fun and meaningful way."

The Noun Project

In dissertation news, our first drafts are due in tomorrow and I'm just about to print mine out. All 14 pages of it! There is a lot of rambling and some sentences don't make much sense, but I'm pleased with what I've done so far. Hopefully will get some feedback at the end of next week.