招牌的隱喻：走讀城市的街道文字

The Metaphoric Signs: Browsing through Street Characters in Cities

城市是現代人主要的居住型態，也是現代文明的象徵，城市建築和街道規劃反映人造地方生活的樣貌。在這些空間移動，隨時可見各種街道文字的存在，固著的招牌、路標，臨時的告示、海報或是行駛中的車身廣告，都是文字的資訊傳達。公共設施上的文字字型可以視為官方的審美標準；一般民間營業場所的招牌設計與商業行為有關，不管規模大小，都代表創造利潤者的經營理念與企業形象。從名稱與字體字型的風格來看，這項藝術的審美判斷，基本上也是隱喻的修辭效果:從商品開發的預期作用連接到消費者具體的商品消費所產生的抽象心理。整體城市複雜的文字呈現，說明閱讀的多元現象，是紙本或電子書以外的閱讀方式。街道上各種文字多是簡潔的單字、詞組、短句的視覺內容，與一般大量文字的文本閱讀時意識的流動延續迥異，是在坐讀、翻閱之外，可以在移動中觀看充滿跳躍、拼接的文字型態，也是各種欲望和真實生活機能的展現，在視覺作用上也影響美感的接受，從書法角度來看，這些字體偏重造型的設計應用，與書法一次性書寫的效果不同，但在筆畫整體與細部要求上，依然有嚴格的判斷標準，對於街道上字體的審美知識應該也是書法教育的一環，因為整體而言，這些文字與城市的發展，共同形成城市美學風格的主要特徵。

Cities have been emerging as the main living habitat for people in the modern era. They symbolize civilization and buildings and street routes wherein reflect the way of living in a manmade environment. As one walks through these spaces, all types of characters can be found from signs, signposts, temporary bulletins, posters, and even vehicles on the move. The fonts on public infrastructures reflect official aesthetics, while the civilian signs of shops and stores are related to commercial acts. Regardless of their scales, they all represent the philosophy and the corporate image of profit makers. Judged by the styles of sign naming and character fonts, the aesthetics of street signs is basically the rhetoric effect of the metaphor: It involves the whole process from the psychological expectation for the invention of a product to the abstract gestalt of the customer created by the consumption that product. The complicated representations of characters within cities suggest diversified ways of reading in addition to paper books and ebooks. Street characters are usually succinct words, phrases, or short sentences. These leaping and montaging visual contents are to be viewed while one is moving, which leads to a divergent stream of consciousness other than browsing in a seated position. Compared with calligraphy, these fonts focus more on the application of their designs, which is quite different from the one-off effect that calligraphy creates. However, the demands for strokes and details still adhere to certain strict standard. The appreciation of street characters should also be considered as a part of calligraphic pedagogy, since on the whole, these characters and the development of cities are interwined together to feature the highlights of urban aesthetics.