Le Francais - en gestaltning. Ett projekt om identitet, språk och bild
Le Français, what is that? What is actually a language?Questions like these are not easily answered and whilelinguists are continuing their search for the essence ofour communicative systems we are all free to make ourown interpretations.In various media, like schoolbooks and otherlanguage-teaching material, for instance, you mayfi nd visual interpretations of what French is, as alanguage?. Very often it is the common picture of whatis considered typically French that is shown. There areseveral problems to be found in limiting oneself to thesekinds of visualizations. One of these is that the Frenchlanguage is no longer strictly French. As a matter offact only fi fty percent of the French speakers today areresiding in France. Therefore a less narrow way ofvisually describing the French language is needed.The purpose of this project was to fi nd a new wayof describing French in visual communication. Themethod used is inspired by brand identity work. Theaim has been to combine a clear strategic structurewith an artistic way of working. Six French-speakersof different origin were interviewed about theirrelation to the French language. Their stories havebeen intuitively interpreted into four images that aredescriptive of different aspects of French. The resultis a publication consisting of these four pictures.This may work as a creative platform for any designerwanting to produce visualizations of the Frenchlanguage.This work presents a new way of describingFrench visually, but is also an exploration of how anartistically intuitive method can be used in creating avisual identity.