Visual Design – Sean Zdenek, PhD

A frame from Horse Girl showing a TV screen, which includes a yellow caption, "That was different." At the bottom of the frame is a second caption track in white letters: "in a dirty gas station bathroom, and this is too much for you?"

March 22, 2020

Caption every screen.

The characters on our favorite television programs are just like us: they come home from work and stream their favorite TV shows and YouTube videos. But it’s hard for me to recall any programs that showed actors using captioned media. While the sounds emantating from their screens may be captioned for us, the sounds are not captioned for them.

Captioning/Visual Design

March 20, 2020

Positioning and styling captions when speakers overlap and interrupt each other

It can be challenging to caption scenes with multiple speakers. Bottom-center caption placement is far from ideal for readers when it fails to clarify who is speaking. Adding to the difficulty: speakers may talk quickly, interrupt each other, or overlap their speech turns to give cooperative support. When captions are placed underneath or next to each speaker, readers can more quickly distinguish — at a glance — who is speaking.

Captioning/Visual Design

A frame from Rick and Morty featuring Jerry driving his car enjoying 'human music.' The simple three-note sequence is represented on the back of Jerry's car seat, which is transformed in my custom captions into a piano keyboard.

August 17, 2018

Published: Designing Captions — A new article on enhanced captioning

Check out my new article on enhanced captioning, just published in Kairos: A Journal of Rhetoric, Technology, and Pedaogogy (23.1, 2018). Read the full article: “Designing captions: Disruptive experiments with typography, color, icons, and effects.”

Captioning/Publishing/Visual Design