Saturday, April 14, 2012

Logos in Hebrew

Once you live in Israel, you will see that global brands, such as Coca-Cola, have their logo in Hebrew lettering. “Translating” a brand so it keeps its instant recognition is not easy.

To illustrate how difficult it can be, let’s have a look at the Carlsberg logo.

At first glance, it looks like the Hebrew lettering is amazingly similar to the Latin one. However, the Hebrew logo tries to stay a bit too close to the Latin glyphs.

First of all, the L has almost no the horizontal line at the top, while the curve at the bottom is too pronounced. In this case, flipping the B to stay faithful to the design guidelines did not quite pay off.....

The first Reish (reading from the right) could also be mistaken for a N (Nun), while the second one (with the leaf on top) is so stylized that is could easily be read as a B (Beit).

That said, the logo has been in use for the past 20 years and is easily recognized by consumers. (Located in Askhelon, Carlsberg has been in Israel since 1992, and produces Carlsberg, Tuborg, and Malty. It also imports Guinness, Weihenstephan, Baltika and Kilkenney).

Consumer brands tend to “localize” their brands. Coca-Cola, Fanta, Ariel, Knorr, and AEG all have created Hebrew logos. Other brands, such as IBM, prefer their logos to remain in Latin characters, no matter the native tongue of their target audience ....

Local brands, such as Tara or Tnuva, , have their logos in Hebrew. Just check out the supermarket close to you - the designs are amazing!

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