Speed up phone and website pictures with a PUN

Hitch a ride on the lowest form of wit

GET TWO MESSAGES ACROSS FOR THE PRICE OF ONE

WITH A PUN!

When you're short of room in a cell phone graphic, web site banner or other image that needs to travel light, have you thought of using humor to save space? You can if it's a pun.

A pun, in case you didn't know, is a word or phrase that has two different meanings.

You can also have visual puns. Pictures that have two interpretations.

You're expecting one meaning - and you get another. Result. You fall about laughing.

...All right then. Not very often.

It's wise to count up to ten and take cover before being tempted to commit a pun. Expect a guffaw and you'll probably be greeted with a groan.

Puns should be approached with a hard hat and a long stick.

Here are a few examples of verbal and visual puns.

VERBAL PUN

Animated banner extolling a system to cure water sources of sulphur contamination. Afflicted wells smell of bad eggs.

SEMI VISUAL PUN

Semi-visual pun because its second meaning is a textual punctuation mark.

Space is always tight in a strip cartoon, but you can do a lot with humor and exaggeration. To avoid adding speech, I made the owl's feathers and mortarboard tassel stand upright with surprise - and there was the (semi) visual pun.

Can you spot the pun in this WAP phone graphic? Come to think of it, 'spot' is a bit of a pun because you're looking for some spots. (Groan!) The little white dots on the sunflower represent seeds. The spots do double duty as a highlight to give the centre of the flower a rounded look.

Puns simply happen. You suddenly realise that a word or image, placed where it is, could have a second meaning. Just don't look for them too hard.

The best you can do is watch out for puns. ...And watch out when you've got them!

It's what you do with the double meaning that counts.

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Speed up phone or website pictures with a pun

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