- 期刊
光的風景：香港霓虹招牌的視覺語言與字形美學
Landscape of Light: Chinese Typography and Visual Communication on Hong Kong's Neon Signs
摘要
香港素有「東方之珠」之稱，閃爍的霓虹招牌構成了香港夜景聞名世界的一大特色。在電視廣播興起前，霓虹招牌曾是一種普及的廣告媒體，輔助各行各業向公眾傳遞信息。透過拍照記錄了街上400多個尚存的霓虹招牌，香港理工大學設計學院在2015年進行了一項名為「香港霓虹招牌資料檔案」的研究，嘗試從多角度探索本地霓虹招牌獨有的視覺語言與文字設計，提供相關歷史、文化及脈絡（context）的多層面分析。本文陳述此項研究所得的主要發現，探討飲食業霓虹招牌的中文字風格及編排有何美學特色，招牌設計的中文字形展現了怎樣的視覺語言，以及霓虹招牌製作者處理文字時運用到哪些隱性的業界知識（tacit knowledge）。
並列摘要
Hong Kong is labelled as the ＂Pearl of the Orient＂ and reflects a spectacular night view of neon lights. Before the rise of television broadcasting, neon signs were one of the most pervasive forms of media, assisting all kinds of businesses in communicating with a consuming public. The Hong Kong Neon Signs Archive involves the photo documentation of over 400 still-existing neon signs since June 2015. It prompted a historical, cultural and contextual study of Hong Kong signs and the below exploration of two inter-related graphic components of neon signs, namely, visual language and typography. This article attempts to explore the following questions: What kind of typography (the style and arrangement of bilingual text) is used on signs? What are the visual languages and conventions of neon signs in relation to different types of businesses? What kind of tacit knowledge (of sign makers) informs the making of typographic neon signs?