PHOTO PREFERENCES

We like pictures of kanji signs, kanji T-shirts, kanji cups, kanji tattoos—anything kanji! Here are our guidelines: 

• Ideally, there will be two to six kanji in the image.

• We don't want a close-up of just one kanji (unless the sign contains only one character). It's best to see the character in some kind of context; that's really the whole purpose. At the very least, we should see the whole word in which it appears. 

• It's best to avoid the flatness and squareness of the signs you see at train stations. They're rather boring! We LOVE wooden signs (e.g., over shops).

• The more legible the character is, the better. Characters at temples are hard to read, because they may be archaic and tend to be written in swirly calligraphy.

• Cool fonts and stylish signs are a bonus, as long as the characters stay reasonably legible.

• It's easy to see the same characters again and again (e.g., 禁止, 入り口, etc.). If you feel you can't recognize a character or have never seen it before, that's the one we want!!!

• Joy o' Kanji is focusing first on junior high school kanji, so we're most eager to see photos of those characters, including the ones newly added to the Joyo set.

• We don't want signs where the kanji seems to be beside the point and where the katakana is much more prominent.

• The presence of romaji in signs with place names has pluses and minuses. On the one hand, the romaji shows what people can expect to see when they travel through Japan. On the other hand, it detracts from the kanji immersion aspect.

• Photos of characters in China, Hong Kong, and so forth can work, too. They're not our first choice, but they do add an interesting dimension to the study of kanji, enabling us to make comparisons. 

When you submit a photo, please do the following:

• If you didn't take the photo, be sure to get the photographer's permission, and tell us the person's name so we can credit the right photographer.

• The more information you can supply about the photo, the better. For instance, you might say "Sweets shop, Kamakura" or "Carving of Sleeping Cat at Toshogu Shrine, Nikko." If you don't know much about the photo or what the characters say, that's fine! We'll figure it out.

• Email them to eve@evekushner.com. In the subject line of your email, be sure to write "JOK Photo submission" or something of that sort. It would probably help if your first email to us has no attachments. Otherwise, it might go into the spam folder.

Thanks again!!!! A million thanks! We look forward to seeing your photos and awarding you free essays!