Trademarks Lexis and Lexus (was nexis is baffling)

[James Harbeck]

>I'm not sure why that consideration would discourage the use of Q; if
>you...um, conceptualize such an ovoid-cum-tail (as it were) as a
>fertilized egg, those have been popular with humans (and others) for
>quite some time.

The aesthetics of geometric shapes in the
abstract, however, are not always so directly
iconic -- for instance, I recall research
suggesting that triangles can, in abstract, have
a psychological connection with sexuality,
squares with security, and so on (though
obviously the reality would never be remotely
that simple), although research on synesthesia
has, to my knowledge, not turned up any reliable
correlations. But if someone figured out (or
anyway decided) that orange and brown colours
make people hungry (and thus painted all those
A&Ws and other fast-food places in those colours
at one time), even though there are many
disgusting orange and brown things, and if other
colours (see for instance the Lüscher test) and
sounds (see assorted articles on the aesthetics
of music) can apparently have particular
aesthetic qualities that aren't necessarily
iconic, why not shapes, too? And certainly there
are some strongly held opinions among
typographers about the aesthetics of various
letter forms (just as there are opinions among
musicians about the aesthetics ofa various keys),
though they tend to be without scientific
backing. (I'd dig up a couple of examples but my
best reference on this is at the office.)

Naturally, it could as easily be that Q is
attractive as that it's unattractive, and, on the
other hand, one can find iconic references that
are less appealing (a tear from an eye, a leech
on a buttock, a rodent seen from above). But I
would be interested to know the basis of the
determination -- if in fact there was one -- that
Q is less appealing than X or Z. It could as
easily be its association with words, for
instance; it brings to mind for me some
uncertainty, as with "question" and "query" and
so forth. And then there are the phonaesthetics
of the [kw] sound by comparison with [ks] and
[z]...

As it is, one way or the other, we seem to end up
most of the time with a lot of post-facto
analysis with little or no predictive value. A
few nice, clear studies would be lovely (and I
suppose that with an hour or so I might find one
or two suggestive studies, but I'm supposed to be
working on something else right now). But that
doesn't stop people in marketing from proceeding
on the basis of some received wisdom, however
baseless it may be!

Ciao,
James Harbeck.

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