Extra Credit

This week, we read Praxis and watched two youtube videos.  We learned about multimedia, especially the use of oral, visual, and written texts.  We learned about typeface and the effects it can have on different types of media.

Praxis talks about arguing with visual rhetoric.  A speech given in person or on TV is visual because the audience watches the speaker present the text.  Written text can also be visual because the readers must process the ink on the paper or on the computer into words.  Visual text such as an advertisement will also make use of written rhetoric by inspiring thoughts for expression.  Praxis mentions the importance of interactions between texts and images.  The author writes, “Only after being engaged by these attention-getting visual elements are readers likely to focus on the written text.”  Attention-getting elements are not only images, but also headlines.  These help authors create an overall mood or emphasize particular points.

In the video, a Defense of Comic Sans, we learn about typeface.  The ugliest, silliest, most popular and hated typeface of all time is Comic Sans.  It is more complained about than Justin Bieber on Twitter.  Vincent Connare created Comic Sans in 1994, basing it on hand drawn fonts from comic strips.  It is hated because it used in inappropriate places, such as Canadian coins and gravestones.  The typeface is not well designed; it is unbalanced, inorganic, and not calculated.  It belongs in the uncanny valley: the more human something becomes, the cuter it gets, but only up to a certain point. Then, it just gets creepy.  Comic Sans is proof that type means more than words.  The font worked remarkably well in its era and exists today as one of the most important design revolutions in history.  Comic Sans, overused by the untrained majority, most loudly represents that the whole world of thought can be shared and made legible by the whole world.

In the video, How Stranger Things Got its Retro Title Sequence, we learn about how typeface can have an effect on a TV show.  The organization Imaginary Forces created the Stranger Things title sequence to feel original and look so good that people cannot skip over it.  The style is similar to the shows Alien and Dead Zone, and it pays tribute to the 1980’s.  The typeface used is called ITC Benguiat.  Imaginary Forces used kodalith to create the title sequence.  Kodalith is an old film format that produces a high contrast image when light shines through the letters.  It is meant to give the title sequence an organic feel.  An eerie mix of digital and physical mediums were used to create the one of a kind title sequence.