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gratus fermentatio

gratus fermentatio

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I'm trying to figure out what symbol or image (other than text) is a good representation of, or an accompaniment to, the the Swedish term "lagom."
I'd like to use "Lagom Brewing" for my homebrew labels, as my anscestry is Swedish & I really do like the meaning of the term; I'm just having a hard time coming up with some sort of image for it.

For those of you who (like me) are non-Swedish speakers, here's the link to the wikipedia article on Lagom:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lagom

I was thinking about a balance type of scale, but that just doesn't seem to work very well. I've also thought about a sillhouette of pine boughs against a nice MT sunset, but I'm not sure if this conveys the meaning accurately.

Of course I like the idea of barley & hops, but there is more to be conveyed than just good homebrew. Maybe a traditional red stuga (vacation house)?
I'm in need of the awesome HBT collective mind & welcome your thoughts on this.
Regards, GF.
 
My two pennies worth after reading the article is a scale with a beer on one side and grains and hops on the other indicating a well balanced beer.

Kind of hard because there is not a direct translation and can mean everything from moderation to balanced.

Good luck with it and thank you for making me think. I enjoy learning different things and meanings of words and since I have a little Swede in my background it means more to learn about your own history
 
How about a camel with a pack made of a large pint of beer. Underneath the words "no straws"

Too cerebral?
 
Took me a minute to think through that one Creamy. Nice brain work, but I don't think most non-Swedes or even non-brewers would get it; even I had to think it through. I really appreciate the effort though, got any more thoughts on it?
Regards, GF.
 
If you want me to move it send me a pm.
 
I say find an image of what represents lagom to you. If it was me, I'd go with an image of an old Volvo 122, maybe like this. You could go the wrangler jeans route underneath with some text like - Simple|Sufficient|Lagom

volvo-classic-car-image2_5965.jpg
 
The three crowns (tres kronor) symbol is recognizably Swedish. Using blue and gold colors works, too. I think the concept behind lagom is perhaps too intellectual to lend itself to a graphic that would be immediately recognizable as representing the concept.
 
As a non-Swede I just want to say that the concept is pretty beautiful. Its not a call for moderation so much as it is a reigning back of excess. The distinction is that it seems to be saying that taking/using "just enough" isnt just good for others who need some, but its more manageable for YOU as well.
 
How about a barrel on a kicksled

28lrwvk.jpg


you can't see it very well on this quick graphic but it says on the barrel ...
34phlwp.jpg

didn't have time to make it pretty

maybe different kicksled, scene or kicker ... could even be a drawn graphic ... but the basic idea
 
And I suppose in terms of Lagom with the kicksled ... when you're kicking to move along, the idea about how much is "optimal" or "more than sufficient" etc kinda all fits.

In a scene of someone with a heavy Lagom öl barrel (öl is beer) on the kicksled, kicking leg in the air trailing, mid-flight, at-speed, downhill; the whole philosophy of "just right", efficiency, "moderation" (as in, don't let the sled get upsot flying over a snowbank) and the idea of balance and "optimal", all seem to fit in.

Who knew ... there was so much philosophy to be had flying down a snowy hill with a full barrel of beer?
 
Jacob, that's just AWESOME! I love vintage photos, so much so, that I used one of the Graf zeppelin over Nurnburg for a Graff label. I've been leaning towards the red stuga, but the barrel on a kicksled is just too cool to pass up.

And many thanks to all, especially Pappers & Creamy. The 3 crowns is definately something I'll use. And both of your comments have served to remind me of the fact that while the concept of lagom remains the same, the application of it CHANGES.

I've been kind of stuck on finding 1 thing to represent the concept & ended up blinding myself to what should've been obvious to me from the beginning: The labels change. Ya, there's a reason I don't work for NASA. :eek:

Thanks guys, you rock! :rockin:
Regards, GF. :mug:
 
gratus fermentatio said:
Jacob, that's just AWESOME! I love vintage photos, so much so, that I used one of the Graf zeppelin over Nurnburg for a Graff label. I've been leaning towards the red stuga, but the barrel on a kicksled is just too cool to pass up.

And many thanks to all, especially Pappers & Creamy. The 3 crowns is definately something I'll use. And both of your comments have served to remind me of the fact that while the concept of lagom remains the same, the application of it CHANGES.

I've been kind of stuck on finding 1 thing to represent the concept & ended up blinding myself to what should've been obvious to me from the beginning: The labels change. Ya, there's a reason I don't work for NASA. :eek:

Thanks guys, you rock! :rockin:
Regards, GF. :mug:
Click to expand...

I’m glad you like the idea GF!
Feel free to use the photo I put together ... or if you like, I still have the raw photos I used to make it ... one of the woman with kicksled, one of the barrel, and one of the text graphic which was simply made with Ms-Word. Only the barrel graphic needed to be modified ... flipped, greyscaled, cropped, trimmed etc.

If you’d like copies of those separate graphics to try your hand with I’d be happy to send em to you. Just let me know.

For what it’s worth, when I went to google to look for some suitable pics to start with I found (not surprisingly) lots and lots of good kicksled graphics and barrel graphics too.

For me, designing the labels for my wines and beers is always one of the most pleasant parts of the job.
 
tres kronor... Am I correct in assuming that Swedish is based on latin? I wouldnt have thought so until "tres"
 
CreamyGoodness said:
tres kronor... Am I correct in assuming that Swedish is based on latin? I wouldnt have thought so until "tres"
Click to expand...

Don't know enough about linguistics to answer that question. Here's what I found on wikipedia:

Swedish ( svenska (help·info)) is a North Germanic language, spoken by approximately 10 million people,[2] predominantly in Sweden and parts of Finland, where it has equal legal standing with Finnish. It is largely mutually intelligible with Norwegian and Danish (see Classification). Along with the other North Germanic languages, Swedish is a descendant of Old Norse, the common language of the Germanic peoples living in Scandinavia during the Viking Era. It is currently the largest of the North Germanic languages by numbers of speakers
Click to expand...

In the 9th century, Old Norse began to diverge into Old West Norse (Norway and Iceland) and Old East Norse (Sweden and Denmark). In the 12th century, the dialects of Denmark and Sweden began to diverge, becoming Old Danish and Old Swedish in the 13th century. All were heavily influenced by Middle Low German during the Middle Ages. Though stages of language development are never as sharply delimited as implied here, and should not be taken too literally, the system of subdivisions used in this article is the most commonly used by Swedish linguists and is used for the sake of practicality.[citation needed]
Click to expand...

In the 8th century, the common Germanic language of Scandinavia, Proto-Norse, had undergone some changes and evolved into Old Norse. This language began to undergo new changes that did not spread to all of Scandinavia, which resulted in the appearance of two similar dialects, Old West Norse (Norway and Iceland) and Old East Norse (Denmark and Sweden).
The subdialect of Old East Norse spoken in Sweden is called Runic Swedish and the one in Denmark Runic Danish (there was also a subdialect spoken in Gotland, Old Gutnish) but until the 12th century, the dialect was the same in the two countries with the main exception of a Runic Danish monophthongization (see below). The dialects are called runic because the main body of text appears in the runic alphabet. Unlike Proto-Norse, which was written with the Elder Futhark alphabet, Old Norse was written with the Younger Futhark alphabet, which only had 16 letters. Because the number of runes was limited, some runes were used for a range of phonemes, such as the rune for the vowel u which was also used for the vowels o, ø and y, and the rune for i which was also used for e.
Click to expand...
 
hmmmm... perhaps the fact that the word for 3 is similar in Swedish, English, Spanish, and French et. Al. is a coincidence then.

Betcha Malfet could clear that one up in a snap.
 

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