I need to update the look of my website and marketing materials; it’s a task I really struggle with because I’m just not a very visual person. Read me a sentence and I can tell you right away if I like it or not, but show me an array of colors, shapes and layouts and I’m paralyzed. After listening to me obsess over various design decisions (“New professional photograph: smiling or not smiling; if smiling, teeth showing or not showing? New marketing postcard for local clients: Colorado theme, French theme or neither; if French theme, classic or edgy?”), my husband showed me this for perspective. It’s from BoingBoing, and features the late designer Paul Rand’s own business card. While Rand designed some of the most iconic logos of our time (IBM, ABC, UPS, Westinghouse to name a few), his own business cards are exuberantly unremarkable. So maybe the marketing material design is less important if you’re really good at what you do!
Nubbin
Episode 4 of Speaking of Translation is live
Episode 4 of Speaking of Translation, the podcast that Eve Bodeux and I host, is now live! For this episode, we interviewed Judy Jenner during her recent visit to Colorado and talked to her about marketing pitfalls and best practices for freelance translators. The episode is 23 minutes long and you can either listen to it right from the site or download the audio file and listen to it later. Thanks for listening and please feel free to submit your comments or suggestions!
A new blog on bilingualism
This isn’t specifically translation-related, but given that many translators live in bilingual households, I think it’s not OT either. My colleague and friend Eve Bodeux recently launched a new blog, appropriately titled Blogging on Bilingualism, with articles and resources of interest to bilingual families or really anyone interested in bilingualism. As Eve’s “About” page says “This is a blog discussing practical approaches and tips for parents who would like to raise their children bilingually or with exposure to two or more languages. Even if your family’s goal is not bilingualism per se, exposure to a second language has many benefits from both social and developmental perspectives. Though my main target audience is families who are bilingual or aspiring to be so, foreign language teachers will also find good ideas for encouraging their students’ international journey.” Enjoy!
Speaking of Translation: translation blogs
The third episode of Speaking of Translation is live! Speaking of Translation is a podcast (I think that you can guess the general topic…) hosted by Eve Bodeux and myself, and in each episode we focus on a different aspect of the translation industry. This time, we reviewed a number of translation and language-related blogs that we enjoy reading. The site is set up so that you can either download the podcast file or listen to it right on the site without downloading anything. Happy listening!
The hash mark in Twitter
I haven’t yet started using Twitter, but I have a number of Facebook friends who feed their Tweets to their Facebook status updates (is that enough Web 2.0 references in one sentence?), and I’ve wondered about the meaning of the hash mark (#) that people include in their Tweets. For example “I was talking on my #iPhone…” or “Going to a #Boulder Media Women event…”. If you’re also wondering, here’s an easy to follow explanation from Kristine Wirth’s blog. In brief, the hash marks are a sort of keyword tag in Twitter, and if you’re willing to sacrifice one of your precious 140 characters, the term that you tag with the hash mark will then show up on the hashtags website. Once you’ve visited the hashtags website, you can then add the decidedly Web 2.0 term “real-time news community” to your vocabulary!