Chch’s sister city will help with Japanese signs

Press, 30 July 1985, Page 9

Chch’s sister city will help with Japanese signs

Printing Japanese on signposts and information bollards for central Christchurch is giving Christchurch City Council staff a headache. The council decided some months ago that the bollards and signposts should include a Japanese translation of the information because of the many Japanese people visiting Christchurch. The bollards and signs are intended for several central city sites to point out tourist features and to provide information on the city and its buildings. The problem with the Japanese translation is not so much one of ensuring the right characters are used as one of accurately printing those characters on to the surface of the bollards. The council’s cultural and public relations committee has decided to seek the help of Christchurch’s sister city, Kurashiki, in producing the bollards. The two alternatives available in New Zealand of using a Japanese electric typewriter type-face and having it typeset for the bollards, or using rub-on “letraset” type characters were not suitable, the city planner, Mr Bill Williams, told the committee yesterday. He had sought the help of the Japanese Consulate staff and they had suggested havthe lettering dime in kurashiki, he said.

The correct lettering for signs would then be guaranteed he said. The committee decided to enlist the help of its sister city committee chairman, Mr Butler Graham, in doing the lettering in Kurashiki. The committee also decided that central city signs should use international pictorial symbols instead of words where possible. The Christchurch City Council should have a definite policy on public relations, says one councillor. Cr Alex Clark believes the council should set out its aims in promotion, whether it be promotion of the city of Christchurch, the airport, or the council’s own activities. At present there was some confusion about who was responsible for promotion, Cr Clark said. The council’s airport committee had contributed towards a promotional video film which included the airport. It had acted in good faith but promotion of the airport was perhaps a task for the Canterbury Promotion Council, to whom the City Council had ceded some of its promotion responsibilities. The Town Clerk, Mr John Gray, said the areas of promotion were blurred because of the overlap in promoting the city as a whole, and the council, It would be better and paid for by a new

metropolitan city. The cultural and public relations chairman, Cr Rex Arbuckle, reported that the Promotion Council took part of the council public relations role, for which the council contributed.