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Kanji Poster survey (sponsored thread)

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ファブリス Administrator

From: Belgium Registered: 2006-06-14 Posts: 4021 Website

Hi guys,

Those of you who have been here for some time know about Paddy Duddy's KanjiPoster. It was a great product that seemed to be really liked by the community. Paddy was a great sponsor and supported this site/forum for several years!

White Rabbit Japan is now the new owner / seller of Kanji Poster, and they are also now sponsoring Reviewing the Kanji as you can see on the homepage:

If you visited the kanjiposter site recently you may have noticed it was redesigned (rather nicely I might add), so that they are now selling the JLPT poster alongside the original Kanji Poster (aka "Heisig kanji poster" because it is in the Heisig sequence).

Max Hodges of White Rabbit Press is now looking for feedback on how to improve the kanji poster :

One thing I'd like to do is try and get a discussion started on what features the community would like to see in a kanji poster. As we discussed before, we have permission from Heisig to license the primitives, so I'd like to survey the community and hear their ideas about what kind of poster they really want.

I've decided to go ahead and create a thread myself. Sponsored threads are something I do once in a while as an added value for a sponsor.

In this case I believe it is a chance to discuss the design of a new kanji poster. Max Hodges should be posting/replying here and may correct me if I made any mistakes.

ktcgx Member

From: japan Registered: 2012-07-18 Posts: 360

Taking a quick look at their site, it seems like a major thing they should do is update the poster to add the new joyo kanji to it.

Perhaps if they had another poster for Heisig too, that added his primitives in the order they come up as well.

Bokusenou Member

From: America Registered: 2007-01-12 Posts: 820 Website

I almost want the cute mouse mascot to appear somewhere on the poster^^
Anyway, adding the primitives is a good idea, maybe have a box with them on the bottom or something.

JapanesePod101 Sponsor

tokyostyle Member

From: Tokyo Registered: 2008-04-11 Posts: 720

I'm not sure if this is the feedback he's looking for but it would be great if this were licensed to someone in Japan so we can buy it here without the ~$20 shipping.

maxhodges New member

From: Tokyo Japan Registered: 2009-12-29 Posts: 3 Website

Thank you Fabrice for the opportunity to talk with your community here! Its very kind of you.

The issue with many posters is that they don't work very well for self-testing i.e. if the meaning or reading of the character is side-by-side with the kanji then the answer is given away as soon as you look at it. One solution to mitigate this is to relocate the keyword it another section of the poster (as we did with the readings on our "JLPT" poster.) But lately I've been playing with the idea of using thermochromic (heat-sensitive) ink to mask the keyword, which is then revealed when you rub it a bit. Here's a demo of the ink in a similar application:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wdvdrHcE7Ew

We have control over the temperature required for the ink to disappear, so we could lower it a couple degrees to make the transition happen faster.

In Heisig's last email to me it now seems licensing the primitives may not be an option because of the book publisher's rights, but we do have a green light for incorporating the keywords instead. Is that something people would like to have on the poster?

In pretty short order I could layout a new design for the poster which includes the keyword hidden in a black bar below each kanji, which is then revealed when you rub it.

Let me know is this is something of interest to you, and maybe I'll throw it up as a Kickstarter in order to help with the funding (thermochromic ink is expensive compared to regular ink) and also it could be a way for early adopters to get a reduced price.

Tokyostyle wrote:
~$20 shipping

: when we acquired the stock of Heisig posters they were all physically located in the US. So we moved them to an order fulfillment center in NY. We think we can improve on the design, and we'll likely print the next batch here in Japan. I'll see what it would cost to have a few transferred to our Tokyo office. I'll contact you when I figure out the pricing. Our "JLPT" posters, btw, are in-stock here in our Tokyo office.

ktcgx wrote:
update the poster

When the new kanji were introduced, I thought of adding them to the poster during a reprint, but the product is that its a lot of additional information. We have to further reduce the font size to squeeze another 200 kanji (plus readings) onto the already very large A0-size poster, so I thought maybe its better release them on a separate, smaller poster as an addendum. Do you think that's a good solution? Would you be likely to buy such a poster? (I imagine the market for that product is pretty small.) If you've already mastered the first 1,945 kanji then congratulations!

I'm very eager to hear any ideas which could help us create the kind of products that best suit your needs.

Cheers,
Max Hodges
Director
White Rabbit Japan
http://whiterabbitjapan.com

Last edited by maxhodges (2013 December 02, 3:42 am)

ファブリス Administrator

From: Belgium Registered: 2006-06-14 Posts: 4021 Website

I'm going to offer a different perspective on this, and that is I think one of the strengths of Paddy's poster was that it was a very simple product. Which was emphasized by the little comic strip he made: the mouse was simply laying there on its bed or sitting on the throne simply looking at the poster, kind of a trophy about the beauty and apparent complexity of the chinese characters.

That said I am not a buyer, as I received one from Paddy. So I am not representative of the typical KanjiPoster buyer. But I would say if I were to test myself, I would probably look over the character on my computer if I completely forgot what it was. The poster can be a means to test myself, but it doesn't have to actually document the characters.

With that said I suppose if you only add the keywords, it won't be too complex.

One idea to keep it simple would be to add a very tiny frame number somewhere so when looking from a distance, it looks like a tapestry of character, more of a visual thing. And then instead of adding a bunch of tiny text on the front of the poster, perhaps include a leaflet or a single page containing the list of keywords and the numbers. So you could look over that separate sheet if you want to test yourself kanji > keyword (edit: this approach also give you more room to include additional character data such as strokecount, and other indexes maybe? I would imagine additional indexes for lookup in dictionaries would be quite useful because for beginners looking up the characters is a big hassle).

The ink is an interesting idea, I would have never thought of it. That said it seems very fancy and I wonder how long the effect will last?

ktcgx Member

From: japan Registered: 2012-07-18 Posts: 360

maxhodges wrote:
ktcgx wrote:
update the poster
When the new kanji were introduced, I thought of adding them to the poster during a reprint, but the product is that its a lot of additional information. We have to further reduce the font size to squeeze another 200 kanji (plus readings) onto the already very large A0-size poster, so I thought maybe its better release them on a separate, smaller poster as an addendum. Do you think that's a good solution? Would you be likely to buy such a poster? (I imagine the market for that product is pretty small.) If you've already mastered the first 1,945 kanji then congratulations!

I, unfortunately, would probably not likely buy the poster anyway, unless I became a Japanese teacher. I see that the extra kanji means the poster is very crowded, but I think if people are looking to buy kanji posters, they'd rather have a complete poster, or they might feel like it would be a waste of time. I like the idea of numbering them, and having a separate pamphlet or small poster with the readings and keyword on it. I think that would make it easier to test yourself with. If the poster really is A0 size, then probably a lot of people will have to hang it somewhere where they can't reach all parts of it, and so the thermal ink idea, while cool, might not be so useful.
Just some thoughts!

ElizabethMiddleford New member

From: Italy Registered: 2012-08-26 Posts: 2

I bought the old poster something like last summer... Recently I started RTK again, and I am finding it more useful than I thought. I mainly use it to motivate myself to study.
It is quite big, but as long as you are creative with the placement I think it is not impossible to place... even if I don't know if I would have bought it if it was even bigger.

I put it on my wardrobe's door, near my desk, so I always see it, and when I am studying new kanji I open it so I can see the kanji even more closely. (hope you understand my English XD photos in the links, I am not posting the pictures because they are a little big)

http://i1073.photobucket.com/albums/w38 … b9e5cc.jpg

http://i1073.photobucket.com/albums/w38 … 59d0c9.jpg

http://i1073.photobucket.com/albums/w38 … dcb6fb.jpg

I put a bookmark on the last kanji I studied, and I love moving it forward :

One think I would really like to see is the kanji divided for chapter, like a simple line between every lesson, so when I look at it while studying I would know how many kanji I still have to do before the lesson is over. Having the keyword written on every kanji would be useful too. I have never used the poster to test myself, but it could be interesting.

One thing I don't care about is having the numbers or the reading, but maybe because I have just began with kanji...

riogray Member

From: Germany Registered: 2014-01-21 Posts: 90

Have you decided on a course yet? I'd love to buy a Heisig poster, but since the posters aren't updatet so far I've held of. Also, please add the new Kanjis to the poster, for me that would make it much better.

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