A couple of days after having written about Faux-typefaces in Hebrew, I came across this ad on a Ramat-Aviv billboard:

Even without reading Hebrew it should be clear that something is wrong here: The Devanagari ॐ (Aum) doesn't really goes well with the Japanese-style Hebrew.

In fact, it's a complete misuse of the Japanese-like font. The ad is for a Hatha Vinyasa Yoga school. If anything, something Indian should have been used. But the Japanese-style font is probably readily available for home-made publishing (a link, anybody?), and, well, it's from Asia, too, isn't it?

Which brings me to another interesting point. For faux-typefaces to be effective, their audience should have a reasonable acquittance with the foreign script. So while Tibetan-style Chinese seems to be frequent (in China), I can't imagine someone trying to typeface Tibetan-style Hebrew (not that it would be to useful, seeing that unfortunately there is no Tibetan food in Israel... Oh, I do love Momo). The Yoga school, even if they had put more effort into font design, couldn't really go for an Indian look, as I don't think Devanagari would be widely recognized here, not even by Yoga fans.

There's another condition, I think, for using faux-scripts. While people should recognize it, they shouldn't actually be able to read it (Bill Poser said something in that respect). Because, well, if people can read it, you can actually use the foreign script instead of simulating it. This is probably why faux-Latin is so rare, not just here but also elsewhere. (An example I could come up with is: The Diet Coke logo, where the Teth is heavily based on a Latin D. But I think it's more about evoking the original (English) Diet Coca Cola logo, rather than Latin script in general).

Some people seem to think that trying to imitate one "exotic" (i.e., not-Roman) language (more precisely, one writing system) when writing in another one is cool (see also Tibetan-looing Chinese).
So for the greater good I started looking for Hebrew texts (logos, mainly) that do it. Chinese and Japanese restaurants seem to be a good place to start, as the three logos above (Hebrew: "Sing Long", "China Town" and "Yakuza") seem to prove.

For me, Chinese-like restaurant logos is a bit outdated, not quite sophisticated. They are trying to seem exotic, but we don't really think of Far-Eastern food as exotic these days, do we. Not with half a dozen Sushi bars in the shopping malls suburb of Rishon Lezion.

Hummus brands that come with Arabic-evoking logos are similar but different. Here it's not about being exotic (Arabic isn't really exotic in the middle east, after all). It's more about being authentic. It's not a Hummus from the Yekim in Strauss! It's the real stuff!

The example of Agadir is somewhat different. It's also meant to evoke Arabic, I think - but more of Arabic calligraphy, or Islamic art. But Agadir, while named after a Moroccan city, it a hamburger restaurant.

Not sure since when, but Gmail can pull email from other accounts.

I really like Gmail features, interface, and especially the spam filter. All my other email accounts are mere façades, as they pipe my mails over to Gmail. All but one. I have a nasty account which I can't configure to forward mails. When I gave outlook up a few month ago, I had to give that account up as well. Now with Gmail's pull, I can configure Gmail to retrieve mail from that account, which is cool.

Something strange however - this option doesn't exist in all Gmail accounts. I have two Gmails, and only one of them has it. I really wonder what could be the reason for that.

[--Addendum: yep, I know Gmail declare openly that only some accounts have this feature. I actually read the page I linked to! I still wonder though what might be the cause. Is it technological? If yes, what could it be? Or is just another way Google creates artificial scarcity, like the fact that for more than two years you needed an invite to get an account? And could anybody explain me what's the great marketing idea about that was? --]