DESIGNING TEXTS

Texts as a part of multimedia project

Texts can be used in multimedia projects for different purposes.
These include

1. Title texts

2 Body texts

3. Menu and navigation texts

4. Button texts

5. Miscellaneous texts

Designing text involves two important aspects of information that is

being presented: content and display.

 Content covers what is the matter that is being presented -

whether it is technical information or a sales update or news.
 Display covers how the matter is being presented - what fonts
are used, what colours and backgrounds are being applied etc.

Parameters that control text design

There are three main parameters that control display designs of
multimedia texts. They are

 Fonts
 Font colours
 Backdrop (or background)

Fonts

Fonts can be defined as a collection of alphabetical and numeric

characters, of similar or comparable profiles and which belong to a
particular typeface family that's determined by a unique family
name. The sizes of fonts can either be adjustable or not, depending
upon the nature of the font family.

True type fonts

Fonts, that are scalable. i.e. whose sizes can be altered are called
true type fonts. These fonts support windows 'WYSIWYG' (What You
See is What You Get) technology.

To have a look at all the true type fonts supported by computer.

1.Double click on the fonts icon in the control panel. The lists of fonts
that have been installed and available with your operating system
are displayed.

2. On double clicking the font file names, the font display is available
under various sizes.

3. Options are available to add or delete the Fonts from the list. You
can even customize the System to display only true type fonts.

4. If you want, you can install new fonts using the Install fonts dialog
box.

Font installation issues

One can use literally any type of font for project. No authoring
environment restricts this independence.

However, there is one catch: have to ensure that all the variety fonts
that are used are available in all client systems also.

Otherwise, the Windows environment replaces font with the best

alternative possible. So, have to find out whether your fonts are
supported by the client system and install them when we don't find
one. The installation program that we supply along with package
usually handles this task. But it may invite other troubles.

For example, chances are that we are using a particular font

developed and sold by a company, and If we are distributing this font
with our package, we are violating the copyright of the font
manufacturer.

Some suggestion to avoid such problems are:

 As far as possible, make use of system fonts that come bundled

with windows operating system, like 'Ariel' or Times new
roman'.
 Make all titles and other areas -hopefully few in number - that
carry other varieties of fonts, as images or bitmapped pictures.
 To 'create our own fonts with the help of font creation tools
like 'The font studio' and distribute them freely without
worrying about copyright issues.

Titling
Titling is an art by itself. Particularly, the variety of 'supercharged
special effects' can be applied only to titles and not other portions
of the contents. Also, good titles often invite the readers to have a
detailed look at the contents that follow...and that probably
makes them more important in multimedia projects.

Jaggies and anti-aliasing

One of the serious problems faced by text designers in the
windows based environment or equivalent, is that of 'Jaggies'- or
small edge disturbances created with true type font families.
These disturbances are relatively low - rather, insignificant - when
the font sizes are small. The serious victims are those alphabets
and numbers that have some sort of curvature, like 'S' or 'C'.

For the problem of jaggies, there is a very efficient solution called

the 'technique of anti-aliasing'.

Anti-aliasing texts
Anti-aliasing is the technique of tracing out the contour of the font
profile using various shades of the font colour, In such a way that
jaggies are reduced to the minimum and are barely noticeable
even at large font sizes.

Most of the word processing programs do not have ‘anti-aliasing’

feature. We have to look out for some popular paint editing tools
like adobe photo shop.

Paint shop Pro is yet another software, that support by efficient

anti-aliasing algorithms.

Editing anti-aliased texts

Problem with all anti-aliased texts: since almost all tools meant for
anti-aliasing texts store the resulting graphics only as images,
there's no way to treat the contents as texts, once they are anti-
aliased.

That means we can no longer open the anti-aliased texts in

standard word processors and do editing, if any. We may have to
use graphic design tools such as Paint shop Pro or Adobe
Photoshop, to edit the contents.

Special effects for titles

A variety of special effects can be applied to multimedia texts.
Premier photo editing software tools like Adobe Photoshop and
Corel photo paint provide lot of special effect options.

Drop shadows
Produces a shadow usually blurred, under the desired text, so that
it looks 'projected' out of the screen. We can usually control the
colour, degree of blur and the extent of opacity of the shadow.

Useful tips, for using drop shadows:

 Never make use of any colours other than black, for

shadows... They seldom produce good appeal. Remember
that no coloured shadows exist in nature.
 Drop shadow effects work best in white background,
although some light colours may also work out well.
 Never try this at dark backgrounds... The shadows may
barely be visible.
 Drop shadows have best chances of working together with
3D texts or bevel effects.

Bevel effects
Bevel effects and their clones are widely used effect on titles.
When applied, they make a projection out of the title area - so
that the text protrudes out with some shine, we can control
parameters like the degree of shininess, bevel size, angle of
bevel etc.

This effect is relatively easy to apply and is very effective in

titling, when the background is particularly a photograph or
bitmap.
Bevelled texts, in combination with drop shadows can produce great
results, when they are applied with suitable fonts over a very light or
white backgrounds.

Three dimensional texts

Normal texts, as we see on the monitor, are all two-dimensional.

If we could add a space co-ordinate along the Z-axis, then the entire
environment becomes three dimensional.

Objects placed in three-dimensional environments look more real

and present a 'physical entity' kind of look.

How to create three-dimensional titles?

Three-dimensional texts can be created in two ways:

 To use advanced graphic tools with 3D text simulation

capabilities.
 To make use of 3D modelling and rendering software.

Text animations
Text animations include moving or flying texts, frequently associated
with some graphics that usually adorn the start-up sequences or the
concluding titles.

Many multimedia producers make it a point to animate the first few

sequences of their title, displaying their company name along with
the logo.

Text animations, along with graphics, involves usage of three

dimensional software platforms.

Content design
Content design is more important than display design.

Qualitative aspects of content

 Developing the contents to be presented
 Deciding the language to be made use of
 Deciding the expected behavioural outcome on target audience
 Producing a sense of appeal relevant for the project, by
controlling the tone of language

All children titles should contain simple words and expressions. On

the other hand, adult titles may follow one style or other, based on
the project under production.

Controlling quantitative aspects

 Deciding upon the 'length of the text’ in each screen.
 Deciding upon the total quantity of matter to be distributed
through the project.
 Dividing the contents, in required proportions between the
screens.

Packing a lot of information within single page may affect readability

and presentation. If a core idea is scattered across several pages,
then audience get bored or do not understand the point so well.

For Children edutainment titles, it is better not to pack too much

stuff in one screen.

Hypermedia
The techniques used for making multimedia projects interactive, is
hypermedia.

Hypermedia is a well-defined structural arrangement of information

in the forms of audio, video, text, animation, graphics and
 other elements of multimedia pertaining to a particular topic or
related to it, with relevant linkages in between them.
The linkages that exist between different forms of information
are called hyperlinks.

 Hyperlinks between information on seashells and photographs

of the seashells.
 Hyperlinks to seashells video clippings.
 Hyperlinks to underwater audio clippings.

Hypermedia can be broadly classified into hypertexts and hyper-

graphics.

Hypertexts
Hypertexts represent all textual information in the project,
interlinked to various other subtopics - by means of hyperlinks.
Those words that carry hyperlinks to other sub topics are called hot
words and are usually distinguished from other normal texts, either
by a different font colour or by a different text style.

Hypertexts enable multimedia professionals to arrange their

information into meaningful groups and present these easily, when
the user requires it.

Children edutainment titles and those that generally contain very

less text-based information, usually depend more on hyper-graphics
and not hypertexts.

Embed hyperlinks in multimedia projects

It is easy to create hyperlinks in html web pages.
Develop a small database of hyperlinks. wherein all 'hot words' can
be stored with the relevant linkage details.

When the user clicks over a particular hot word", relevant hyperlink
details are read from the database and the screen is updated with
the appropriate information.

Text editing software tools

 For content creation and development, any standard Word
processing tools like Microsoft's Word and Corel's Word Perfect
can be used. These tools even allow to check up the spellings
and grammar of our language, so that more time can be spent
on developing the contents.
 For creating Title special effects, any Image editing Software
can be made use of Eg. Adobe Photoshop ,Corel's Photo Paint,
Paint Shop Pro
 For 3D Texts and Text animations, 3D Studio, Light wave 3D
Advanced 3D Modelling and Animation software are available.