Fun & Famous

THE LITTLE CREATURE DOES NOT NEED TO BE NAMED

I’m just staring at a housing site and I think it’s getting a bit out of hand with the lettering madness. Dude, those hollow inspirational quotes – Always be a unicorn! Never let go of your dreams! – on canvas are fine, but why does a basket need to say ‘stuff’, a can ‘clean’, does the kitchen wall have to endure ‘eat’ and do the letters ‘H-O-M-E’ have to dance on the windowsill?

Who forgets that their home is their home? And would a kitchen novice cook better with the command ‘cook’? Or would Jeffrey forget his name if he wasn’t constantly reminded of it in his room? Can you distinguish ‘soap’ from ‘towel’ without it being written on it? And while we’re at it: why not have a ‘shitting cover’ on the bathroom door and ‘pooping thing’ as an inspirational quote opposite the toilet?

“Then the sugar can have a name, and the flour too, and then the nightstand can be called ‘condom cabinet’ from now on”

Why not use that funny old-fashioned letter pliers to label everything with a black piece of tape with white embossed letters? Then the sugar can have a name, and the flour too, and then the nightstand can be called ‘condom cabinet’ from now on. The stairs can be labeled step by step and you can finally distinguish the television remote from the media box remote by calling them ‘watching tube snipper’ and ‘choice stress’ respectively. Oh, and just preemptively admonish your family by sticking ‘hands out of the cookie jar’, ‘feet off the table’ and ‘this is not a hotel!’ in the appropriate places. So that no one will ever forget.

It has something incredibly childish about it, that exaggerated lettering. Living among the letters is like living in the children’s classic My Fun Dictionary by Richard Scarry. Learning word for word what is what. Great for toddlers, but not for adults anymore. Get rid of it.

Written by Kalinka Hählen