Sign Language hits the “big screen”, let’s party with pi(e)! (SBLTN Lab Notes 043)
Sign Language for Disney+ and Netflix”, K-Pop graphic design, ageism in fonts, & celebrating pi(e) day
IN THE MARGINS
“Gentle Reminders” card of the week (the one that I pulled)
“Little moments of decompression can help cultivate expansion!”
“This daily oracle deck by artist & writer Barry Lee is all about emotional self-care. It’s not meant to tell you what to do, but to help you connect with your own inner knowing—to gently bring you back to your own center every day, and to add a little slice of tranquility & joy to your day. No matter what’s going on, you deserve to be reminded you are worthy of love and tender moments of comfort, beauty, and whimsy.”
Purchase the deck | Creator: Barry Lee (@barryleeart Instagram)
ACCESSIBILITY
Sign Language for Disney+ & Netflix
SignUp Captions provides both American and British sign language captioning over Disney+ and Netflix movies through a simple Google Chrome Extension. SignUp Captions Website | SignUp Instagram (@signupcaptions)
This is so encouraging to see and I hope other big streaming platforms follow suit by investing in this kind of accessibility.
DIVERSITY & INCLUSION
Fonts and ageism
Shaun Wallace, a doctoral candidate in computer science at Brown University, set out to glean “what gains in reading effectiveness are possible by manipulating font choice alone”.
In the study, 16 fonts were tested based on their popularity online, in newsprint, in PDFs, and among readability experts. There were some interesting findings but what stood out was “older participants, or those 35 and over, read more slowly on average compared to younger participants with every font, except EB Garamond and Montserrat.” (summary of the research)
Apple and other huge platforms definitely ushered in an aesthetic era of greys and thin fonts for user interfaces, leaving many people behind in terms of being able to actually see/read these things. I don’t know about y’all but it seems like as screens and devices got bigger, the fonts got smaller (or I’m getting older… the knees don’t work like they used to haha)
“The study’s findings underscore a design problem that stretches far beyond typography: There is no such thing as an “average” user.”
But that doesn’t mean we can’t try to design for as many as possible.
ART & DESIGN
K-Pop krushing design
I probably talk about Korean music group BTS way too much but when design and music mix, it’s so cool! I’ve literally purchased albums and merch before solely for the packaging haha (designers, don’t act like you don’t do this… maybe you bought a can of soda or candy bar just for the nifty packaging, but it still counts!)
I was reading up on how the agencies behind K-Pop’s biggest artists design for global reach. While the official stuff is dope, to be honest, sometimes the fan created merch and promo designs are even better (music labels, pay attention!)
❓ QUESTION: Have you ever bought something just for the design?
.
.
.
Signing off from the Starship SBLTN,
Laneen (Pronouns: she/they)
HEARD IN THE HALLWAYS
Happy Pi Day! (for those that write the date as month/day)
Pi is the Latin name of the sixteenth Greek letter, π. It’s written numerically as 3.141592+, thus the 3.14 celebration on March (3) 14th.
The symbol is used by mathematicians to represent the ratio of a circle's circumference to its diameter. The first recorded use of π as a mathematical symbol comes from the Welsh mathematician William Jones in 1706, in which he abbreviated the Greek περιϕέρεια, (meaning “circumference,” or “periphery”) to its first letter: π.
Whew child, when I tell you I had a STRONG knee-jerk reaction to just the headline.... Glad I had patience to see what the author meant. It's a bit of long read that I had to break up into chunks but it was worth it to expand my perspective and question my initial reaction
🖊️ Word of the Day: Simulacrum (noun)
A superficial likeness or representation of something (Example: “The wax figure is a perfect simulacrum of the president.” or "a small-scale simulacrum of a skyscraper")
An unsatisfactory imitation or substitute (Example: “a bland simulacrum of K-pop music")
I shamefully bumped up the font size on my phone... also video games I am constantly sizing it up, although that could be because I still only have a 35” old TV not a monster like maybe most people? I’ll have to see if my kobo had Garamond or maybe it is already the default.
I’ve been listening to K-Pop while I work out recently it is very motivating. I will have to check out their design side!!! I know the anime merch side is getting killer with shirt designs and stuff it is so tempting 😭😭😭
Recently, I was reading a romance manga (A Sign of Affection) about a deaf girl in college who falls for a guy at her college who is like a world traveller type and he asks to learn sign so he can communicate directly to her (so cute 💗I DIE OK 😭) anyway the author really put a lot of love and care into the representation of sign and includes so many little notes about it. Apparently Japanese sign is based on the different visual meanings of kanji and it changes based on locale and age! So sign for the elderly has different gestures than for young folks. So interesting! They have someone consult on all the sign they put in the story for accuracy and make sure to interview and research a variety of folks to ensure the representation isn’t harmful. It is one of my favourite stories. When the main character can’t fully understand something by lip reading the author puts that word backwards and reversed letters in the text so you as the reader also can’t parse it until it’s clarified again by the person speaking, it’s a story crafted with a lot of love and detail.
I also buy food and beverages a lot based on design 😹😇