Poll

On a picture story what is the easiest way to read and understand what is going on ?

bold on top
3 (23.1%)
bold on bottom
4 (30.8%)
plain on top
1 (7.7%)
plain on bottom
4 (30.8%)
it is what it is and i figure it out
1 (7.7%)

Total Members Voted: 13

Author Topic: Picture story text- style and location  (Read 12535 times)

Offline Rasputin

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Re: Picture story text- style and location
« Reply #40 on: January 09, 2009, 01:54:03 »
Oh yes, the sweet taste of revenge can be such a rewarding and lasting joy of the mind, but be warned, it is very addictive and may consume you    ;)

On the lighter side of life , i am surprised that it is no easier to read bold versus plain text . What would one consider using bold for then . Yelling or important statements ???
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Offline playmofire

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Re: Picture story text- style and location
« Reply #41 on: January 09, 2009, 07:15:19 »


On the lighter side of life , i am surprised that it is no easier to read bold versus plain text . What would one consider using bold for then . Yelling or important statements ???

When I was working there was one member of staff of used bold, as it is designed to be used, to draw attention to important points, to shout, as Ras put it, in the intstructions she wrote for schools.  (And she could shout, even when she was talking normally, although she was really a very pleasant and likeable woman.)  Each year some new problem rose or else teachers ignored her bold instructions relating to a previous problem.  As a result, every year there was more bold type and less normal type and the effect of the bold type got less and less, partly because it lost it's "shouting" effect but also, like capitals, it is less easy to read in large quantities.
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Offline Martin Milner

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Re: Picture story text- style and location
« Reply #42 on: January 09, 2009, 14:04:52 »
When I was working there was one member of staff of used bold, as it is designed to be used, to draw attention to important points, to shout, as Ras put it, in the instructions she wrote for schools.  (And she could shout, even when she was talking normally, although she was really a very pleasant and likeable woman.)  Each year some new problem rose or else teachers ignored her bold instructions relating to a previous problem.  As a result, every year there was more bold type and less normal type and the effect of the bold type got less and less, partly because it lost it's "shouting" effect but also, like capitals, it is less easy to read in large quantities.

My point exactly.


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Offline Timotheos

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Re: Picture story text- style and location
« Reply #43 on: January 09, 2009, 15:06:41 »
What I learned as an amateur writer doesn't necessarily apply to a visual, non-professional medium like photostories--

The "learn to write" books stress avoiding visual cues like bold or italics.  All-capitals is an absolute dead end.  The choice of words ought to convey the emphasis.  Writing books even frown on exclamation marks as a cheap shortcut.

These books can run extreme, however (they have to be extreme to sell copy).  My second-cousin, an English teacher, found my use of exclamatory sentences without exclamation marks jarring.  [ ie: "You are mad, mad," he said. ]

That being said, multiple exclamation marks or multiple question marks are considered amateurish.
"What!?  What??  What!! WHAT?"

But, our application, cartoon photostories, has less burden of "professionalism".  If you want ten exclamation marks for comedic effect, I'd say it is appropriate.

But, yeah, crazy bold and italics all over the place can get hard to read.  And multi-colored fonts are a drag.

We had a department secretary who would send snotty training reminders to the entire department in a rainbow of font colors, bold type, italics, different fonts, and anything an elementary school girl could dream up.