Wanted: Service Katakana

[retired_member34]

Is anyone proficient in Japanese katakana? I need to have one word: カッコイイ (apparently meaning cool!) set in a particular typeface.

The problem is that the typeface is quite stylised, and so I cannot tell if I am selecting the correct glyphs, and I do not seem to be able to change the font for the word (using AI CS4 and Fireworks CS4), only select the glyphs from scratch. The image below show where I am so far (but sure some of them are wrong, particularly the last 3). The top is the original, the bottom the stylised font.

 

[retired_member12]

Edwin perhaps might be able to help.

 

[Edwin]

I'm afraid I don't have any decent paint packages on my machine, as I gave up art at about 5 years old. However, the top logo has the right text in it, the bottom one doesn't.

In case you're able to select and cut and paste them one by one from somewhere (e.g. a table of Japanese characters), the 5 characters should be as follows:
ka
little-tsu
ko
i
i

BTW, there are about 2x as many results for "かっこいい" (the Hiragana of "kakkoii") as there are for "カッコイイ" (Katakana version) in Google Japan, so the latter is somewhat less used.

 

[bensd]

Have you asked Scott? Some of his websites provide translations for tattoos so might be able to help.

 

[retired_member34]

I'm afraid I don't have any decent paint packages on my machine, as I gave up art at about 5 years old. However, the top logo has the right text in it, the bottom one doesn't.

In case you're able to select and cut and paste them one by one from somewhere (e.g. a table of Japanese characters), the 5 characters should be as follows:
ka
little-tsu
ko
i
i

BTW, there are about 2x as many results for "かっこいい" (the Hiragana of "kakkoii") as there are for "カッコイイ" (Katakana version) in Google Japan, so the latter is somewhat less used.

Many thanks for the help Edwin, much appreciated. It is part of a logo, and so is really only being used for styling so not so concerned about popularity, it is for an english site (anyone guess? recognise the W above?).

I can select individual characters, but only by their shape, or by Unicode, but the Unicode does not seem to match up. It is a free font called Donut Shop (last on the right GAU+FƒtƒHƒ“ƒg)

The choice I have is:

Do any appear to be the characters you list above, could I ask?

 

[retired_member34]

Have you asked Scott? Some of his websites provide translations for tattoos so might be able to help.

Thanks for the suggestion, I did look at Scott's site, but he currently only offers names in Katakana, not words or phrases.

 

[TinkyWinky]

Agree with Edwin - 3rd letter 'Ko' correct top, incorrect bottom example.

I think it looks like 3rd line from bottom 6th Character... but could be wrong as stylising a bit odd.

Is there another set of characters ordered that comes with the font?

When I learned, it was....

A I U E O
Ka Ki Ku Ke Ko
Ta Chi Tsu Te To....

etc

TW

 

[Edwin]

The little-tsu character is in the 5th line, 3rd character from the right (just to the left of the "-" character)

Having said that, it's a frankly terrible font if you need it to actually be READABLE by a Japanese speaker. I don't think the person who made it cared at all about legibility, it's supposed to be "cool" but in fact it just looks weird (if you're used to Japanese typography)

If that doesn't matter for your purpose, no problem of course!

 

[retired_member34]

Agree with Edwin - 3rd letter 'Ko' correct top, incorrect bottom example.

I think it looks like 3rd line from bottom 6th Character... but could be wrong as stylising a bit odd.

Is there another set of characters ordered that comes with the font?

When I learned, it was....

A I U E O
Ka Ki Ku Ke Ko
Ta Chi Tsu Te To....

etc

TW

Thanks, for your help and Edwin's.

Think I have it, after looking at the table above, and Edwins Ka Tsu Ko I I on a chart of the 45 Katakana symbols, with a conversion table from the font maker (which made no sense until your posts as it just had 45 characters with english letters), I came up with the following 2.

Could you look again, any good?

 

[retired_member34]

The little-tsu character is in the 5th line, 3rd character from the right (just to the left of the "-" character)

Having said that, it's a frankly terrible font if you need it to actually be READABLE by a Japanese speaker. I don't think the person who made it cared at all about legibility, it's supposed to be "cool" but in fact it just looks weird (if you're used to Japanese typography)

If that doesn't matter for your purpose, no problem of course!

Thanks again. It doesn't really matter if it is a bad font for a Japanese speaker, but it would be nice if it was legible.

Does the top font above (the slightly geometric one) look any better?

I once spent a week workinh in Tokyo, loved every minute of it, wish I had more time there.

 

[Edwin]

Nope, that's wrong

The 2nd character has to be little-tsu, not tsu. Choose the character I mentioned before.
The 4th and 5th characters should be "i" - you've picked "a". You need 6th row, 4th from the right.

It's still a very, very strange font. Probably the least legible Japanese font I've ever seen! The top font was better for sure.

 

[retired_member34]

Oops, made a mistake on the I. Now corrected. Not sure how to get little-tsu rather than tsu. Is there a "little" version of all the characters?

 

[Edwin]

No, only a few characters have little versions.

As I said before, pick the character I indicated from the table you pasted and that's little-tsu. It should only fill about 2/3 of the "square" rather than the whole square (look at the very first logo you posted in post 1 carefully and you should see the difference)

 

[retired_member34]

It should only fill about 2/3 of the "square" rather than the whole square (look at the very first logo you posted in post 1 carefully and you should see the difference)

Got it, I think!

 

[Edwin]

Those look right, but the 2nd one's got such a poor 3rd character it's very hard to read the Japanese (looks a bit like a "fu" rather than a "ko"). That's 100% down to the character set - there's nothing you can do if you really want to use that character set.

 

[retired_member34]

Those look right, but the 2nd one's got such a poor 3rd character it's very hard to read the Japanese (looks a bit like a "fu" rather than a "ko"). That's 100% down to the character set - there's nothing you can do if you really want to use that character set.

Thanks again Edwin. Is the top font in the above image legible?

 

[Edwin]

It's not a particularly great font, but it's not bad either. It's 10x more legible than the 2nd one. Sorry to have been a bit negative about the fonts, but you can imagine I see a lot of them every day!

 

[retired_member34]

It's not a particularly great font, but it's not bad either. It's 10x more legible than the 2nd one. Sorry to have been a bit negative about the fonts, but you can imagine I see a lot of them every day!

Negative is fine, I don't have access to a lot of Katakana fonts, and I like the angles to it, so it will have to do for now.

So the provisional logo for gameandwatch/co/uk is

What fun. Thanks for all your help Edwin, I owe you a beer.

ps. TM infringement? Well, it is a personal project for a fan/collectors site, will not be revenue generating, so permissible I believe. I will display the ownership of all trademarks shown.