Hello Charity,
You have asked a question that I have been giving a lot of thought to recently. I spent the majority of my museum career with a focus on the operations of mobile interpretive tours, including the best practices for signage. Since last year, I have been working with Eriksen Translations, a language service provider that has an extensive history working with museums on their translation and localization needs, including exhibition signage and labels. Below I’ve outlined my observations in the museum world for bilingual signage (sprinkled with a bit of my opinion).
1) Bilingual signage should always follow general best practices for all signage:
a. Use easy to read fonts (overly decorative fonts should be avoided).
b. Font size should be big enough to be read by all visitors (factor in the potential effects of crowds for popular exhibitions and displays).
c. Color choices are important and a high contrast is needed between the text and the background colors. I have seen too many exhibits make the mistake of thinking light gray text on a dark gray background is appropriate and readable…it rarely is.
2) Make finding bilingual signage easy for the non-English speaking museum visitor.
a. BE CONSISTENT – No matter what your institution decides is the best placement of the Spanish text, ensure you follow this placement for all signs. (e.g. If you have English on top followed by Spanish, don’t switch it around for another sign).
b. MAKE IT OBVIOUS – Having a second color for the second language text will make it easier for the visitor to zero in on the language of their choice. As all visitors move through the museum/exhibition, they will start to only see/focus-on text in their preferred language.
3) Ensure you are translating the text properly and in a consistent manner.
a. Set up rules for translation and signage for your institution. For instance, in art museums, some institutions prefer to keep artwork titles in the same language for all translations. This could be always in English, or the language in which the title was originally given by the artist. Other museums will translate the title into the translated language. There is no right or wrong answer here…just be consistent.
b. A translation for signage does not need to be 100% literal. The translation should consider in a number of factors:
i. Will the audience (who may not be from the same country) understand all references?
ii. It is more important to give the translation the same amount of space allotment than it is to translate every word. For example, a literal translation from English to Spanish typically has a final word count 15% larger in Spanish. An institution does not want to give the false impression that they are giving preference to one language over another by dedicating more space in the signage. The point of the translation is to keep the core intent of the information in the sign/label the same for every language.
A couple museums that I believe have been impressed with on how they think about bilingual signage are the San Diego Museum of Art and The Patricia and Phillip Frost Museum of Science. Another great resource is the National Park Service. Their Harper’s Ferry Center has created great guides for the best practices for signage and access for the entire NPS system. Although these guides have the park system in mind, the vast majority of the information is useful universally. Their Spanish Language style guide can be found online at http://www.nps.gov/hfc/products/pubs/Spanish-HFC-Style-Guide-2015.pdf and their general signage suggestions concerning access for all is found at http://www.nps.gov/hfc/accessibility/accessibilityGuideVersion2.1.pdf .
If you would like to talk further I am happy to continue this dialogue.
Best,
Jared Crellin
Eriksen Translations
Jared.crellin@eriksen.com
718-802-9010
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Jared Crellin
Account Manager
Eriksen Translations, Inc
Brooklyn NY
Original Message:
Sent: 03-03-2016 08:16 AM
From: Veronica Betancourt
Subject: Seeking Best Practices for Bilingual Labels
Hello, Charity,
The Oakland Museum of California may be a good reference point for you. I know that they offer trilingual labels and (if I remember correctly) may have put out a publication that talked about their design for these labels. I'll see if I can find it for you. Until then, here's a sense of what the OMCA labels look like: http://jewishmuseummd.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/Dont-lick-the-paintings.jpg
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http://www.stefanieborys.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/omca-post-1-2-800x450.jpg
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Otherwise, looking into some of the findings from the Bilingual Exhibition Research Initiative may be helpful; Stephen Yalowitz authored a guest post on Museum 2.0 that provides an overview of the full report.
Best,
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Verónica Betancourt
Ph.D. Candidate | Art Education
The Ohio State University
Columbus, OH
veronicabetancourt.com