Branding or Excluding?

Various aspects of branding can be recognized in the Dutch nineteenthcentury literary book trade, even though for a long time publishers and booksellers shied away from the explicit commercialization of what was considered to be merchandize of superior cultural value. A search for examples of branding reveals that branding studies seem to lack their own heuristic methodology: what can be described as branding is often a relabelling of the findings of ‘old school’ literary studies. Moreover, the history of important nineteenth-century printing houses has yet to be written. Research into branding strategies therefore might be somewhat premature, although the branding concept might be useful for book historians in describing the relations between publisher (printer), author, and reader.

Liedkultur des 17. Jahrhunderts als Übersetzungskultur

ZusammenfassungIn our paper we analyse translations of Italian and French songs into German from the late sixteenth to the mid-seventeenth century. The methods of translation employed range from a narrow focus on the words and music of the original song to free variation. Analysing the bimedial relationship of words and music is the principal focus of our study. We ask: What consequences does a translation have for the text-sound relationship? In the first part of the study, we develop a heuristic methodology that describes this phenomenon while taking into account the cultural context of each translation. In the second part, we put this model to the test by examining a prominent song collection: Heinrich Albert’s Arien oder Melodeyen (Königsberg, 1638–1650), which contains a large number of as yet unidentified French and Italian originals. Two case studies on the translation of an Air de Cour and an Italian aria, as well as reflections on the digital accessibility of song translation, conclude the paper.

A Heuristic Evaluation of Achik.biz Mobile Shopping App

The purpose of this study is to present the report of the evaluation of a mobile print shop and design shopping application (Achik.biz). Following a dearth of studies on the usability of mobile print shop and design shopping application, a study was conducted to evaluate the Achik.biz application. Heuristic methodology was used in the evaluation. The evaluation was conducted by 3 usability experts. The study reveals quite a number of usability issues related to the application.