Organising Content

Katakana

Making sense of it


The main body of content in my publication will be translations of the sub category of Japanese characters called Katakana. Within this group there are just under 100 characters. I have to some how come up with an efficient and easy to use way of organising this content to allow the reader to locate the character they wish to translate quickly and easily.

Through investigation, I came across a couple of methods used in books to help readers find what they need quickly and efficiently. The two most popular and most effective methods are the use of tabs and colour coding. This gave me the idea to organise my content into a small number of groups; this would allow me to use either of these methods to organise my content.

When looking at a grid of Katakana (on the left) I tried to see if there were any common relationships between them. I noticed that all the pronunciations of the characters end in 1 of 5 vowels of the english alphabet (a,e,i,o,u). This gave me the idea to divide the character into vowels, resulting in 5 different tabs/colour coding.

Below, I've colour coded the table of characters into 6 different colours; 1 for each vowel as well as one for extras.

Some characters will have a whole page to themselves, where as other pages may include 2 or even 3 characters. This means that the book will contain around 60 pages of characters and the translation.

To make sense of the characters, along side the chart came a list of translations into english pronunciations which I used as a reference. I matched up each number code under each character with the matching code on the reference list.

So that I could type out the correct corresponding katakana character, I found a language calculator online that allowed me to enter the english pronunciation and it would type the character into the box. I then copy and pasted this into Illustrator where I edited them in my chosen style.

Tabs 

Organising the content into categories

This simple tabbing system is made up of a number of thick stocked pages that are a few millimetres wider than the rest of the book. They act as dividers that the reader can then use to locate the section they need.

The disadvantage with this method is that the dividers are made of medium thickness and so are quite weak and flimsy which, if carried around a lot, would become torn and misshapen. As Im making a guide book, I need the book to be sturdy and able to withstand being carried around in a bag.

 This method is a lot more durable an sturdy as the pages behind the tab strengthen it and prevent ware and tare. The only disadvantage of this method is that it requires a larger number of pages than I have.

This technique is one that would suit my publication the best. These tabs are simply a series of semi circles cut through the pages at various positions exposing different layers.

This method would be easy to execute and would also be durable and strong.

My contents page would include a table of Katakana characters organised into groups of vowels. These groups would then be colour coded and that colour would match the coloured tabs. This will allow the reader to locate each character quickly.