Introduction
This is a demonstration of desktop publishing for an Adobe Illustrator poster. The target is to localize it from Chinese into English.
The aim of this localization project is to meet the needs of English speakers who lives in China so as to let them know about this program.
Original File
Localized Version 1
Localized Version 2
- Prepare the file for translation
As we have said, this is an Adobe Illustrator file. Luckily, all the Chinese text are edible. In this engineering step, what we need to do is to create a picture list which is to copy all the text that needed to be translated into a word document and then send it to the translators along with the Translation Memory.
Above is the picture list I created for this project, which consists of a column of the original Chinese text and the blank column I left for the English translation.
2. Send the translation file to translator and send the translated file to reviewers
This step includes sending the prepared file you have created in the first step and the relevant Translation Memories to translators. And then send the translated documents to the reviewers to review.
3. Receive the reviewed files and then perform desktop publishing
After receiving the translated document, the DTP process starts.
Since our project is Adobe Illustrator file and every text is edible. I first deleted all the Chinese text on it and left the poster “blank” (without any text). And then I created a text layer which includes all the translated text.
The Text Layer and the Original Layer
Then, you need to create individual text boxes and then copy all the translated text into it. You can drag the box or resize the box depends on your translated text and the format. However, be careful to keep the style consistent with the original file.
Creating Text Boxes for Each Line of Translated Text
After you have created all the text boxes, there is another important step – try to find out the best font! Since this project is translated from Chinese into English, it is hard for us to find the exact same font which applies to both English and Chinese. For this specific project, the designer of the original file uses a font which can only be used in Chinese. Therefore, we have to find out what is the most similar one in English.
In the real life scenario, you have to talk to clients about which font they want to use or do they have specific requirements about the font. In this project, I have created two localized versions and the only difference between them is their fonts. I will let the client decide which font they are going to use.
Two Localized Versions
4. Linguistic QA and Mechanical QA
After the DTP process, you need to make sure that the translation is making sense in the context and everything is looking fine in this localized document. Therefore, you need to do Linguist QA and Mechanical QA to make sure that everything is right.
5. Things to Pay Attention to
The first thing is the company logo in this poster. The logo itself is bilingual, so I left it in that way. Because the aim of this project is to let the English speaker who lives in China to understand this program, keep the logo bilingual is not only good for keep consistency of the whole project but also let them know that this project is created in Chinese originally.
The Bilingual Company Logo
The second thing is about Terminology. Because Save the Children International is created in the UK, it is based on British locale. Taking into consideration that we do not specifically focus on the US, Canadian, Australia or British locale. I chose to use “Children” instead of “kids” in this project in order to keep the consistency with the company name.
In conclusion, this is only a demonstration of a small project about Desktop Publishing in Adobe Illustrator. Through the Multilingual Desktop Publishing course taught by Max Troyer at Middlebury Institute of International Studies at Monterey, we have also learned Desktop Publishing in other Adobe software such as AfterEffects, InDesign, Photoshop, Acrobat. We have also learned how to localize a Epub file and play with font by using FontDorge.
Please feel free to contact me via:
mint@miis.edu
831-238-8994
or connect with me via LinkedIn
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