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Monday, July 14, 2008

French village names that make you smile

Condom On the occassion of the French national holiday Quatorze Juillet (literally 14th of July), the Dutch news this morning featured an item on the annual convention of around 40 French mayors of communities that have a funny or musical town name. The towns are all members of the Association des communes de France aux noms burlesques et chantants. In case you don't know Dutch and French, some of the mayors present come from the following communities:

However, I still miss the town Condom in the Midi-Pyrénées in the list! Maybe next year?  permanent link for this entry

Sunday, July 13, 2008

Map of violence

A photo of nothing but lines in the sand won the 2nd prize singles in the category General News of the World Press Photo contest 2008. The lines were drawn by Asdallah Asdel Khaled in January 2007, in a refugee camp in Chad and represent a small map of the assault on the village of Furawiya, Darfur that took place in 2003. Asdel Khaled explains through this map how the Janjaweed circled the village and came in shooting, looting and murdering.

I saw this photo by Stanley Greene this afternoon visiting the World Press Photo exhibition here in Utrecht. Although simply drawn with a stick in the sand, this map tells a horrific story that words cannot describe.  permanent link for this entry

Saturday, July 12, 2008

Lovely language

Lovely Language I have just bought the book Lovely Language: Words Divide Images Unite that shows the universal visual language of the social scientist and philosopher Otto Neurath and graphic designer Gerd Arntz. The book accompanies the exhibition I visited late last year. It does not only contain essays on Isotype, Neurath and Arntz, but also on contemporary usage of pictograms. The book fortunately contains some statistical maps, but I particularly like the various signage systems of airports and the Dutch Railway Company (by Mijksenaar) that make for interesting comparison.  permanent link for this entry