Oct 18, 2005 | Richard Bird | 2 Comments
Multilingual/Multicultural Is Not An Option
7 out of 10 new business inquiries in the last 90 days at R.BIRD specify bilingual (English/Spanish), multilingual (English, Spanish, French), and dimensions of cultural awareness (e.g.: Asian; African-American; and other conversions) as criteria for the projects. This is a significant note.
In all of these cases, the driver is THE RETAILER - not necessarily the client’s prescience or strategy.
For all - (100%) - of such inquiries, R.BIRD has won the engagement - YES!
Are we experts? It is wrong to claim expertise in what is an emerging field of practice. Yet, how many “experts” in “bilingual, multilingual, culturally transitional branding and packaging” can you find? Let me know.
So. How is it that we’ve become a focus for such things?
- We listen
- We explore
- We learn
- We share
- We are open
More than 3 years ago, we launched Ask Marivi - our blog space on a mission to find understanding and cultural influences from a designer’s perspective. The results have been beyond all expectations. Google this: “Latino Package Design” - and, what do you see?
More and more retailers are telling our clients that they require - even, demand - English/Spanish - multilingual - branding and packaging before they will consider taking on a newly branded product line.
We continue to expand our awareness and trial-by-fire experience. It seems to be working.
R.BIRD is recommending bilingual and multilingual executions to all R.BIRD clients as a foundation for any developments in Corporate Identity, Brand Identity and Internet ID programs.
R.BIRD not only preaches this concept, but endorses the idea. Amaya® is a brand and product line of our own creation.
There are 2 comments so far | Post a comment
Richard Bird | Oct 26, 2005
Great points, Justin… particularly, with regard to complexity.
When we quote costs for bilingual or multilingual production steps, we multi-ply accordingly… usually by a factor of 4 or 5. We’ve learned this the hard way from experience.
The process of executing a design or brand direction - even one that you’ve developed yourself - is surprisingly “tedious” and requires exponentially greater time resources in design adaptation, layout and art for reproduction.
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Justin | Oct 20, 2005
The requirement is driven by retail, but can also originate from a ‘higher’ source. For example, Canadian law requires many products to be released as bilingual: English/Canadian French.
At the risk of shameless self-promotion, I’d like to point out that multilingual pieces increase the technical nature of layout and press. Over ninety-percent of the pieces we’ve created in the last 8 years have been printed overseas, so mechanicals had to be right the first time or the cost of fixing an error in an EPS file skyrockets. A multilingual production artist who knows the nuances (punctuation, history, typefaces) for a couple dozen languages, and speaks a few themselves can be invaluable.