Lost in translation
The subtitle of my book is A Guide to Creating Iconic Brand Identities.
I wasn’t 100% sure about it when my publisher’s sales experts made the suggestion — I didn’t want to oversell the content — but a good case was made, and I happily took their advice.
My book is now available in a few different languages. One of those being Polish, courtesy of Helion.
What’s the subtitle?
Design an ingenious logotype!
Doesn’t quite have the same ring.
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23 appreciated comments on “Lost in translation”
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You’re right, it’s definitely lacking compared with the original. If only you had access to a Polish translator who had a solid understanding of the design field, too. I’m sure they do their best (and no doubt with the same time demands as designers routinely experience) but it is a shame when the meaning is altered in this way.
Congratulations on release of Logo Design Love in different translations. Hopefully the book’s success will extend to a second edition of the Polish version, with an updated subtitle.
Congrats David! I ordered your book (in english) today, it arrives tomorrow :)
Two things that can cheer you up. First, we have had far worse translations of the original titles. Secondly, the book collects in our country really great reviews. Greetings from Poland :-)
David, if you ever need help with translation to croatian, I’m there for you! :D
Hi Tracey, if there’s a second edition, or even a second print run, I’ll be delighted, regardless of translation. Thanks very much for the congrats. Any plans to get back into blogging again, or do you have another blog I’m missing out on?
Andrew, that’s great, thank you. If you get a chance, I’d love your feedback after reading.
Good to know, Arek. I wondered what was said in the Helion site reviews (please excuse my ignorance of the language).
Robert, very kind of you to offer. I believe the translations are initially handled by the “rights” team at Peachpit, so what happens is a different publishing house (Helion in this case) will purchase the rights to translate the copy, then handles everything at their end. Don’t quote me on that, though.
Hi David,
I speak Polish although I’m Italian. I live in Krakow. The exact translation of the subtitle is “Design an ingenious logotype!”. As soon as I saw it I thought “how out of tune with the content and the style of the book” then I read the post.
I wouldn’t mind assisting a translator next tme.
You would have thought that publishing houses would use top class translators for such things. It’s not easy translating books into other languages and trying to get the same meaning across, but this seems a bit poor, especially given the comments from the Polish speakers above.
Surely you’re within your rights to question them about this?
I appreciate the accuracy, Andrea. Your language skills are admirable. Hebrew, too?
Ian, my contacts at Peachpit are seeing what can be done about fixing it for any future editions.
Epic facepalm, but Helion does that a lot (they even tend to translate technical terms that don’t have Polish equivalents, which is usually pretty bad). One of the reasons why I don’t read translated tech books in general. And avoid Helion like fire.
Pardon me for not translating the title in it’s exact meaning – Andrea is right on this one. I just thought that at this point translating it, whether to “ingenious” or “great” is of less importance since the outcome is pretty much away from what author had in mind.
Now after a while and giving it a second thought, words like “iconic” and “identities” used all together in that particular sentence are indeed hard to translate into our language in a way that would allow to retain the general idea, as close as possible to the original.
Those words in noun forms, so “icon” and “identity” are easy to translate though it’s definitely harder to make it sound “right” (understandable with first glance) in polish.
English is such an universal language that one could even say a sentence like this: “I nine to fived today” and it’s fairly understandable to everyone who speaks it, while in polish it would be quite impossible to translate; it would sound plain stupid.
I’m not a translator, despite that I still believe that this could’ve been done better – there’s always a solution. Like I mentioned in my previous posts in the feedback topic, I thought I did exaggerate the issue. Now after seeing your post David, somehow I feel even more stupid.
But at the same time it shows that you really care about it and seek more opinions (just my assumption), so after looking at everyone’s comments here, it seems we share the same feeling, perhaps writing about it wasn’t a bad idea… :)
Agreeing with Arek – having read quite a bunch of comments on various polish publisher sites, great majority of them are positive and on a 6-note scale, I’d say the average for your book David is at least 5. And I bet it’s no different in Germany or China – I didn’t expect nothing less.
I will make myself a present in december and ask Santa to bring me a copy :-).
I forgot to add, it’s been on my mind for a while – why when the image of your name is visible David, it has a red, horizontal line accross it?
Since we cannot edit posts after submitting it, feel free to delete or merge it with the previous one after you have read it – sorry for the trouble.
No worries at all, Peter. The orange stroke was added when I launched a previous version of my blog design (back when I changed my logotype, too). I should probably update the comment attachment.
Peter’s comments are very interesting; it would be especially interesting to know how “brand identity” is conveyed in Polish.
David, thanks for asking about my blog. I have taken a break for family reasons. However I miss blogging and have been quietly accumulating ideas for posts when time permits again.
I agree. Perhaps there’s no direct translation for “iconic brand identities” or “brand identity.” As for the blogging, I look forward to your return. If you want to mark it with a spot on Logo Design Love, it’d be a pleasure to host you.
Hey David,
Ugh, well I guess it sometimes happens and I recognize that the phrase “iconic brand identities” is a hard one to translate (at least to spanish it is), but is still a nice step.
I wonder if you are interested in translating it to spanish… I’d love to assist with that.
Regards!
David, thanks for the very generous offer. I’ll keep you posted.
Hello David,
I’m from Poland and I just read your book. It’s gorgeous!
I think that it’s very helpful for everyone, and me.
Regards.
Hi,
Have this book in Polish, too. For the best book, which I can read in my language.
Thanks David for this book.
Regards.
Hi David,
I finally got a chance to finish reading your book. I liked it a lot!
It was easy to read, to understand and gave some great examples (of work as well as client/agency experiences). I’ll definitely be reading it again (and using it for reference).
The design resources in the back are a nice bonus :)
Tomasz, Matthew, Andrew, thanks very much for reading. Great to know you enjoyed the content.
Enrique, I appreciate the offer. No plans as far as I know, but thank you.
David,
I finished reading your book a few days ago. I gotta say that it definitely helped to subdue the newbie designer jitters that I’ve been feelin’. Thanks for the insights and the advice.
-Roberto
You’re more than welcome, Roberto.
Hey David,
I have to say, well done for all your hard work!
I did read your book a long time ago as e-book ver. as was unavailable in my country. Now I have it in hard copy and in Polish, AWESOME!!
Waiting for another book from you. :)
P.s English ver is better. :P