Extra Credit Post

       This week, the readings and videos examined the idea of text in its different forms. Not only text with reference to writing, but additionally spoken text, and visual text. It is not often that we think of text as being spoken, rather we hold the belief that text is written. In the videos from this week, "A Defense of Comic Sans" and "How Stranger Things got its retro title sequence," the ideas of visual and written text were examined. "A Defense of Comic Sans" was interesting, and presented some valid arguments, however, I do not think it was convincing enough to justify the use of the text itself. One of the arguments the video mentioned was that it is particularly good for children who have difficulty reading letters because of its easily distinguishable characteristics, however, I feel as though there are other fonts that are just as easily distinguishable; for example, Times New Roman. One of the statements that I think should be acknowledged is the fact that Comic Sans was initially intended to be used in comic books, not for everyday paper writing. I feel as though Comic Sans should remain a comic book text. Overall, "interchangeable type led to a spread of literacy, comic sans, and the personal publishing it comes along with should lead to a spread of design literacy."

       The second video examined text with reference to, tv shows. This video was interesting in the sense that it opened the viewers eyes to other possibilities of text relevance. This video tied into the Praxis reading in that there there is a prevalent connection between text and images. Text gives the reader an idea of the visual image that is going to be presented and vice versa. Stranger Things is one of the examples in which text helps to set the scene. In the video, there was an analysis of the text used and the history behind it. This video brought up the idea that text takes time and effort to create; so, in this case the text was created by basing it off of older styles that had been used in the past for alien movies, old books, etc. From this point, there were edits to make the text move (so it would be more eerie), and music was added (to give a sense of the mood). In conclusion text is more than words on a page; it helps to set the scene for a certain situation, or the mood for a show that is about to come on tv. It may help to draw the viewer in, or possibly assist with making a passage more interesting (poems for example). There is more application to text than one would think.