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The painful rise of 'trendy' typography – when will brands stop mangling our language?

The trailblazer was easyJet – but other companies have really taken things too far - GETTY
The trailblazer was easyJet – but other companies have really taken things too far - GETTY

As far as I can tell, easyJet started it. When the airline launched 23 years ago, with its bright orange livery and rock-bottom fares, it was like a breath of fresh air – and a far cry from the fusty flag carriers that had dominated European aviation for decades.

Unfortunately, some clever Dick spoiled it all by convincing the boardroom to abandon the rules of grammar. This spanking new airline, which would help shape the future of flying - and branding - across an entire continent, would not be known as “Easyjet”, or even “Easy Jet”. It sparked a revolution, going lowercase with the “e”, and slapping the faces of English teachers across the world with a big old capital “J”.

What was it thinking? Qantas, British Airways and KLM have survived for aeons without misusing the England language - so why did easyJet feel the need to be so subversive?  

Journalists would - and some still do - refuse to play the game, resolutely writing “Easyjet” whenever it is mentioned. But evidence suggests that a silent compromise has been reached, and more often than not reports called it “EasyJet” – still grammatically unsound, but slightly less jarring. Other journalists have accepted defeat, however, and there are countless uses of “easyJet” to be unearthed, even in headlines and - hell’s bells - at the start of sentences.  

Alas, the airline opened the floodgates, and a quarter of a century on travel businesses are breaking new and increasingly preposterous ground when it comes to tortured typography.

Last month I enjoyed a delightful supper at a Michelin-starred restaurant in the Lake District. Delightful, that is, except for its insistence on spelling its name “HRiSHi”. Are we supposed to whisper each “i” and shout the rest? Try it yourself. Utterly stupid.

Nice food, odd use of capital letters
Nice food, odd use of capital letters

Then, just last week, I spotted a strange typo in the pages of The Sunday Telegraph’s travel supplement. Discover Germany’s Hainich National Park, I was urged, with “Fred.\Holidays”. Oops. I hope a sub got a ticking off for that little blunder. Except it wasn’t a blunder. For that is how Fred.\Holidays brands itself. I rang their call centre to discover whether reps answer with a breezy “Fred dot backslash holidays, how can I help you?”.

They don’t. They say “Fred Holidays”.

Fred.\ Holidays. What were they thinking?
Fred.\ Holidays. What were they thinking?

But I did have an eye-opening conversation with Simon Chambers, the firm’s operations manager. He revealed that the “.\” is actually the company’s logo, devised by an external branding consultant at considerable cost. Originally the company, a subsidiary of the cruise specialist Fred Olsen, was simply known as “Fred”. But the logo was added afterwards to create “Fred.\”

“At functions people would honestly come up to me and say, ‘ahh, you work for Fred dot backslash’, nice to meet you,” Chambers told me. “This went on for months, until they decided to add the ‘holidays’ part.”

So now it’s Fred.\Holidays. Not to be confused with Frederick W.M. Holliday, former governor of Virginia. And Chambers claims people have stopped saying “dot backslash”. Fantastic.

The parent company, Fred Olsen, has its own typographical quirk. For it is not Fred Olsen but “Fred.Olsen”. Apparently one of the three Norwegian brothers who founded the company - and from whom it takes its name - insisted on the introduction of the dot a few years ago so people would realise Fred is an abbreviation of Fredrik. Seriously.

That dot is vital
That dot is vital

Hotel chains, at pains to stand out from the crowd, are among the worst when it comes to dodgy grammar. Despite the enduring appeal of The Savoy, The Ritz and The Dorchester, who play with a straight bat, they insist on silly branding.  

EDITION Hotels, for example, feels the need to yell its name at potential guests, as does PER AQUUM Hotels & Resorts and COMO Hotels and Resorts.

Ampersands are cool, apparently, and spaces are not. Or at least that’s what somebody told &Beyond and One&Only.

LUX* Resorts & Hotels opts for a random asterix. I’ve scrolled to the bottom of its homepage and there’s no footnote.

*We spent lots of money on brand consultants who said this was trendy
*We spent lots of money on brand consultants who said this was trendy

The outdoor clothing brand Arc’teryx prefers a random apostrophe. Which makes you want to hiccup halfway through saying it.

Venice Simplon-Orient-Express is particularly confusing. No, there isn't a dash between Venice and Simplon. Don’t be ridiculous. But there is one between Simplon and Orient, as well as Orient and Express.

The list is endless. There’s InterContinental, AccorHotels, TripAdvisor, SureStay, ME by Meliá. And don’t get me started on Hotels4u.

These chains keep hundreds of PR staff in employment with the sole task, it seems, to hassle journalists about the exact terminology required, no matter how foolish or verbose.  Please don’t called it “Le Touessrok”, they demand, it’s “Shangri-La's Le Touessrok Resort and Spa, Mauritius”. Woe betide the hack who calls it “The Renwick”, and not “The Renwick Hotel New York City, Curio Collection by Hilton”.

So what’s it all about? An absence of capital letters on corporate logos is now de rigueur. Amazon, Airbnb, eBay, Facebook, Flickr, Intel, Citibank and BP have all ditched them, though most, unlike easyJet, still use capitals when referring to themselves in press releases and on their websites.

Capital letters = bad
Capital letters = bad

According to the website design firm Adhere, “logos in lower case exude an approachable and casual vibe, allowing corporations to connect easier with their target market”. Which might explain why the Met Police and Ryanair still use nothing but capitals.

I sought the opinions of Alexandra Watkins, a US brand expert, author, and founder of naming firm Eat my Words. Its motto? “A name should make you smile, instead of scratch your head.” Clearly she wasn’t consulted by any of the travel companies mentioned above.

“easyJet needs to grow up and spell its name like a proper noun and a proper business,” seethes Watkins. “And Fred.\Holidays is a classic case of a brand trying to ‘b/CR8T!V’. Just because it’s different, doesn’t doesn't mean it's a good idea.”

As for the likes of EDITION Hotels, she says: “This is what I call capital punishment, because it hurts our eyes and ears to read it. There is no need to shout – you learned that in email 101. EDITION needs to relax.”

She concludes: “These companies purposely gave themselves names that are easily bungled. At the time, they may have thought they were being clever. But these brands will forever have to explain, spell, pronounce and apologise for their names.”

easyJet? As the company that started this nonsense, the first apology should come from you.