Japanese Goshuin

Mike · April 22, 2019

When I was in Japan a few weeks ago, I visited many temples and shrines with the family. Not only are these places beautiful and historic, they have a wonderful art called Goshuin. The Goshuin is available to anyone with the proper book and willingness to spend the time to wait for a monk or temple representative to create. Each temple/shrine has their own Goshuin design and the intent is to prove that you've paid a visit. The artwork is a combination of a red stamp and handwritten calligraphy. You can read more about Goshuin here: https://livejapan.com/en/in-tokyo/in-pref-tokyo/in-tokyo_train_station/article-a0002402/

Anyway, the reason for my post isn't to inform you about Goshuin, but, I wanted to share some Z car logo's inspired by Goshuin. I had some fun today making a digital version of our logo with the Kanji symbols Pride, Performance, Protect (they didn't seem to have preservation). I'll be looking more into calligraphy in the future because it was very inspiring.

Here's my first crack at a digital version using filters and Kanji symbols I found on the Internet.

Patcon · April 22, 2019

That might make a really cool shirt for the store ?

psdenno · April 22, 2019

2 hours ago, Mike said:

I had some fun today making a digital version of our logo with the Kanji symbols Pride, Performance, Protect (they didn't seem to have preservation). I'll be looking more into calligraphy in the future because it was very inspiring.

And if you can find the Kanji for "Always check under the carpet for rust"........?

Dennis

Mike · April 22, 2019

Doing a little more messing around... the big kanji says pride, performance, protect. The small ones to the right say old (classic), car, group (club). Kanji is a bit tricky to find the same kind of words with similar meaning..

Mike · April 22, 2019

And another idea...

Mike · April 22, 2019

And how it looks on a Goshuin page.. ?

(wife had me remove the black border around the Z in the middle of the logo.. (gotta love it when you get a 2nd opinion from the lady..)

HS30-H · April 22, 2019

My advice would be to tread very carefully. Kanji has subtleties and variations which make it very difficult to transliterate from different languages and ideally you'd want a native speaker/writer looking over your shoulder to help you avoid falling into any elephant traps. You don't want to get tattoos of anything until you've had second, third, fourth and more opinions on it...

In the meantime, here's a bit of food for thought:

Your 'Pride' might be best expressed as 誇り ('Hokori').

The Kanji you have chosen for 'Performance' ('En') is more appropriate to a theatrical performance (it's a link to 'skill'). As you are referring to the performance of a car, I would recommend 走り ('Hashiri') or 高性能 ('Koseinoh') as they are appropriate to a mechanical object, and to movement.

For 'Protect'/protection it might be better to start off with a different English word. Since I'm guessing the sense you want to evoke is one of looking after, preserving and curating, I would recommend 保護 ('Hogo'), but there might be a better phrase (which would mean a combination of two or three Kanji).

You smaller 車古団 ( 'Shakodan') is OK, but 古車団 ('Koshadan') might be an improvement? It's just a touch more sophisticated.

I don't want to put @kats on the spot (I'm sure he's very busy) but I'd trust his opinion on this kind of thing much more than mine...

Edited April 22, 2019 by HS30-H

Mike · April 22, 2019

4 hours ago, HS30-H said:

My advice would be to tread very carefully. Kanji has subtleties and variations which make it very difficult to transliterate from different languages and ideally you'd want a native speaker/writer looking over your shoulder to help you avoid falling into any elephant traps. You don't want to get tattoos of anything until you've had second, third, fourth and more opinions on it...

Thanks, I was hoping some of you could help out. I appreciate the feedback because I know definitions can get lost in translation. Essentially, my goal is to repeat the meaning from our slogan "Pride, Performance, Preservation" in the center, and the small symbols show that we are a "Classic Z Car Club" (although I could not find anything for Z).

4 hours ago, HS30-H said:

Your 'Pride' might be best expressed as 誇り ('Hokori').

There were about three different symbols that I found when looking for the word pride. I wanted to stay away from the definition meaning arrogance, but, rather I steered toward the pride/respect direction. Here are three symbols for pride (according to the website I've been using to look these up - I'll link the site below). The 1st one means pride/respect, 2nd is pride/squatting with legs outstretched, and 3rd is pride/haughtiness.

4 hours ago, HS30-H said:

The Kanji you have chosen for 'Performance' ('En') is more appropriate to a theatrical performance (it's a link to 'skill'). As you are referring to the performance of a car, I would recommend 走り ('Hashiri') or 高性能 ('Koseinoh') as they are appropriate to a mechanical object, and to movement.

Ah, I didn't think about human performance versus mechanical object performance.. I'll see if I can find graphics for the ones you recommend.

4 hours ago, HS30-H said:

For 'Protect'/protection it might be better to start off with a different English word. Since I'm guessing the sense you want to evoke is one of looking after, preserving and curating, I would recommend 保護 ('Hogo'), but there might be a better phrase (which would mean a combination of two or three Kanji).

Here are three symbols for protect: