s'illustrer

English translation: To showcase

08:39 Jun 3, 2019

French to English translations [PRO]
Marketing - General / Conversation / Greetings / Letters

French term or phrase: s'illustrer

Hello,

I am translating the slogan of a personal website related to my artistic activities as a hand lettering artist and illustrator.

In French I have "Du lettrage pour vous illustrer" which keeps the 2 keywords of the activity (lettrage & illustration) and plays with the idea of "illustrer" and s'illustrer".

In English, I can't find something satisfying and that's why I am asking for your help!

I thought of "(Hand) Lettering to illustrate your success" / "Illustrate your success with lettering" / "Letter your way to success" but we lose the effect of "s'illustrer".
Furthermore, if I can avoid to include this idea of "success" in order to stay more general it would be even better.

I would be extra grateful if you could help me with this :)

If you want to have more context, the website is the following: www.onirographica.com

Magali H KudoZ activity Questions: 3 (none open) Answers: 6 France
Local time: 03:14

English translation:To showcase

Explanation:
Showcasing is presenting good examples of ones work in order to illustrate what we provide.

Lettering to Showcase

or

Lettering for Showcasing

Selected response from:

Nicolas Gambardella
United Kingdom
Local time: 02:14

Grading comment

4 KudoZ points were awarded for this answer

Summary of answers provided

4 +7

To showcase

Nicolas Gambardella

4 +1

Your message hand-lettered and illustrated

Yvonne Gallagher

Depicts/describes

Louise TAYLOR

make a name for yourself

Tony M

Discussion entries: 5

Philippa Smith

@Magali

12:20 Jun 3, 2019

You've come up with some nice ideas there, especially the last one, but I'm not sure they'd work in your context with the SEO issue: I assume you want to be able to attract anyone looking for hand-lettering and illustration, so I would have thought you need to keep those two terms (a bit like keywords, no?). You could maybe stick to the plain option for the top of the site then use one of your word plays further down - the advantage of it being your own site!

Magali H

France

ASKER

12:14 Jun 3, 2019

Oh and Philippa, I think you're right about SEO!

Magali H

France

ASKER

12:13 Jun 3, 2019

Hi Helene and Philippa, thank you so much for your insight! 
I had thought of other expressions, getting rid of "illustrate" but playing with "draw" (as the definition of hand lettering is "drawing letters" AND it relates to illustration). There was :
<ul>
<li>Let your message/communication/voice be a big draw;</li>
<li>Sharpen your message/communication/voice, draw a crowd;</li>
<li>Draw your message/communication/voice in big letters;</li>
<li>Draw attention with hand lettering.</li></ul>

If none of this works, I might as well keep "stand-out lettering and illustrations". I prefer to lose the wordplay and have something clear than to write something awkward ;)

Thanks again!

Philippa Smith

09:24 Jun 3, 2019

I agree with Helene about "stand out", and think you do have to let go of the wordplay you have in French, lovely as it is, and go with something plainer in English, with just "lettering and illustrations". For example, I thought of "stand-out lettering and illustrations" where the emphasis is swapped round, but where the link would still be made implicitly in potential clients' heads - 'great, stand-out illustrations will make me stand out!' sort of thing...
And might there be a question of search engine indexing/optimisation that gives extra weight to the words you use at the top of your site ? (I've no idea, not having my own site, so could be barking up totally the wrong SEO tree!)

Helene Tammik

08:50 Jun 3, 2019

Hi Magali, for me it brings to mind "distinguish yourself" and "stand out". Obvs you lose the "illustrate", unless you can squeeze it in somehow, eg. "Lettering that illustrates how you stand out"

Answers

13 mins confidence:

s\'illustrer Depicts/describes

Explanation:
Lettering that depicts/ describes you.

These might not be the best words. I think the general meaning is that the font shows the personality of the user, describes in some way who they are. I can't see it having anything to do with success.

Louise TAYLOR
France
Local time: 03:14
Specializes in field
Native speaker of: English

Notes to answerer

Asker: Thank you Louise! I agree with you about "success", it was just for lack of something better. I like "depicting" too. In this case though, it sounds to me like if I wanted to translate the original meaning too hard. Maybe it's better to write something either completely different, or to lose the wordplay.

21 mins confidence:

peer agreement (net): +7

s\'illustrer

To showcase

Explanation:
Showcasing is presenting good examples of ones work in order to illustrate what we provide.

Lettering to Showcase

or

Lettering for Showcasing

Nicolas Gambardella
United Kingdom
Local time: 02:14
Native speaker of:

French
PRO pts in category: 8

Notes to answerer

Asker: Thank you all! @Nicolas, isn't "to showcase" a transitive verb?@AllegroTrans, I like your suggestion indeed. I would use it as "showcase your success with lettering" in this case because without, I feel we are pretty far from the actual activity.@writeaway, I wouldn't do it either!

Asker: Thank you all @Nicolas, isn't "to showcase" a transitive verb?@AllegroTrans, I like your suggestion indeed. I would use it as "showcase your success with lettering" in this case because without, I feel we are pretty far from the actual activity.@writeaway, I wouldn't do it either!

1 hr confidence:

s'illustrer make a name for yourself

Explanation:
...with our hand lettering... etc.

I think it all rather depends on what sort of 'lettering this is — do you mean sign-writing, logos... ? What sort of other places would your lettering be used?

Tony M
France
Local time: 03:14
Works in field
Native speaker of:

English
PRO pts in category: 348

Notes to answerer

Asker: Hello Tony and thank you! I would definitely chose this one if I was focusing on logo design. I had in fact something similar with "put letters after your name" but discarded it for the same reason. For now, I'm focusing on lettering on chalkboards, shop windows, murals and things like restaurant menus etc. Very few logo designs. In the future, I plan to do more digital products with lettering.

2 hrs confidence:

peer agreement (net): +1

s'illustrer Your message hand-lettered and illustrated

Explanation:
or

illustrating & lettering your message

... if you want something close to what the French slogan intends. Though it doesn't keep the wordplay it does say what you actually DO which is important I think.

Or a bit further away

Your message artistically/creatively illustrated

--------------------------------------------------
Note added at 2 hrs (2019-06-03 11:20:08 GMT)
--------------------------------------------------

BTW I agree with Philipppa and Helene as well about "standing out". So, in the examples above you could follow with "to make it stand out" or even to "showcase it" but I think if using "showcase" you need to be clear WHAT is being showcased...

I see this site https://www.thescribblist.com/ just uses "Lettering and Illustration"

--------------------------------------------------
Note added at 4 hrs (2019-06-03 12:52:05 GMT)
--------------------------------------------------

Yes, SEO is important so you should really keep the words that actually describe what you do in the main heading or logo. You can always be more creative in sub-headings and further descriptions of what you offer the client...

Yvonne Gallagher
Ireland
Local time: 02:14
Specializes in field
Native speaker of:

English
PRO pts in category: 88

Notes to answerer

Asker: Hello Yvonne, thank you for your reply. I agree with the "showcase"comment, I was asking myself the same question. Of course, "lettering and illustration" is the most commonly used in this field, but I'd prefer to be slightly different than to fit in. On the other hand, it is sometimes better to keep things simple instead of trying too hard to be original! And as suggested by Philippa, this would allow to have good SEO.

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English translation: To showcase

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