With the knowledge I have acquired through exploring several Adobe applications, including Photoshop, Illustrator, and Indesign, I decided to carry out what I learned by localizing an elephant conservation poster from English to Japanese. The poster, “Massacred in the Name of Greed,” was originally creator by Blair Davison. I was fascinated by its design since the first time I saw it and was convinced that it would be a challenging but fun project to work on. In addition, the poster mentions that demands for ivory are strong in some Asian countries, such as Japan and China, so I thought it would be meaningful to localize it into Japanese.
WORKFLOW
Step1 Translate the Source Text
The translation process went smoothly. The only part I struggled to translate was the idiom “the elephant in the room” since Japanese does not have an equivalent expression. My initial plan, as shown below, was to translate it as “象から目を背けないで (don’t turn your gaze away from the elephants)” with a phonetic guide text “密猟 (poach)” added on the word “象 (elephant).”
However, after consulting with a senior translator and other translators, we agreed that the translation may not convey the original meaning as precisely and clearly as I initially expected. I believe that trans-creation should not be prioritized if it cannot capture the nuances in an expression. Therefore, I changed it to a more straightforward translation “象の密猟から目を背けないで (don’t turn your gaze away from elephant poaching).”
Step2 Hide the Source Texts [Photoshop]
Some texts were hard to eliminate, especially those around the elephant image. I used a mixture of tools in Photoshop, including the magic wand tool, the object selection tool, the lasso tool, and the spot healing tool. Most of them were used with the content-aware fill. This step was a delicate process of erasing the texts in such a way that the background texture would be preserved.
Step3 Insert and Arrange the Japanese Texts [Illustrator]
I switched to using Illustrator for this process. At first, I created shapes with the pen tool and added text to them to align the translated texts with the design. However, I quickly realized that this method was not effective since the original texts were not always placed in a uniform direction. Therefore, I gave up this method and focused on creating regular text boxes and texts along the path. Meanwhile, I had to change a lot of my original translations—a challenge I had that will be discussed later in the post. Overall, though, I enjoyed this process the most.
Step4 Decorate the Font [Illustrator]
The font used in the project is called Mushin. It had to be decorated to imitate the scratchy brush strokes used in the original poster. I used a combination of methods, including applying the brush tool and adding brush strokes on the existing font with the transparency panel.
CHALLENGES
Challenge1 Imitating the Original Font
The font used for the original poster is quite distinctive. To make this localization project successful, I believe an appropriate Japanese version is essential. However, it was incredibly difficult to find a similar font for the Japanese language. So, I decided to decorate the font myself to imitate the scratchy style of the original. My initial plan was to apply a brush effect to all the texts. However, as shown below, the outcome was not satisfying. The stroke weights used in the image were from 0.15 to 0.25—the brush stroke did not have any effect if the weight was below 0.15. Since the Japanese characters, Kanji, usually have more strokes than the English alphabet, they became hard to read when the brush effect was applied, especially for those in a smaller size. Therefore, I used the transparency panel to add brush strokes on the existing font, with the brush tool as a supplement. It was a delicate and time-consuming process since characters have to be edited one by one. After this project, I am very confident with using the transparency panel and the brush tool in Illustrator.
Challenge2 Sacrificing the Conciseness of the Japanese Text
When text is translated from one language to another, the length of the translated text is often different from that of the source text. A short, concise expression tends to sound more powerful in Japanese. To match the tone of the poster, the length of the Japanese translation became much shorter, with only half of the characters that the source text had. As a result, I realized that I needed to revise my translations while arranging them in Step 3. Otherwise, the localized poster would look quite spacious compared to the original—spoiling the powerfulness of the design. Although many of the words I added were unnecessary from a translator’s perspective, the revision was needed to create a visually appealing localization project. I tried my best to balance between a concise/powerful translation and an attractive design. However, the decrease in the number of characters from English to Japanese still inevitably made the localized poster look less dense when compared to the original one side by side. This is a problem I could improve on.
CONCLUSION
This poster is the first individual localization project I ever worked on. I am not one hundred percent satisfied with the final product—as I still see many adjustments that can be made when it’s compared to the original poster side by side—but I think I have given it my best with the limited amount of time. The experience of working on this localization project definitely further developed my Photoshop and Illustrator skills and will benefit me in the future.