Third, games can offer multiple subtitle fonts in the settings. Compared to the other media, you often have less time for the subs, so an easy-to-read font might be preferable for certain genres. Second, games require more concentration: you need to not only scan the image but also input commands and think about what you should do next. What works great for one audiovisual medium can be no good for another, and in this respect video games stand out the most due to their interactive nature.įirst, to avoid obscuring player actions and interface elements, games use subtitle font sizes that would be considered too small for film/animation, and your chosen font should perform well at those specific sizes. Here are the eleven things you should consider to make an educated choice: However, font selection done right is much more nuanced than that - you need to avoid the common pitfalls and decide on the right balance between readability and aesthetics. When it comes to choosing the subtitle font, many people habitually pick something tried-and-true, like Arial, Verdana or Helvetica, and call it a day. After all, subtitles exist to be read - not to be marvelled at. Just remember that readability considerations should always take priority. In some very rare cases even such monsters as Karloff Negative could work well. Now, you might be surprised that beauty isn’t one of the requirements, but, as I said, it’s in the eye of the beholder. To sum up, a font with good aesthetics is balanced, aptly styled and not too spread out. This concludes the second part of the article. The takeaway is this: before committing to a font, make sure it’s not inappropriate in some way. For instance, I think everyone will agree that, however readable, the following subtitle design would be awful for a black-and-white thriller film:Īnd so on. Now, beauty is in the eye of the beholder, of course, but some aspects of it are no doubt objective. So, the more displeasing, intrusive or distracting an appearance is, the lower its score. Here’s how I define it:Īesthetics of an appearance is the degree to which it harms the aesthetic value of the image. The extent of this interference depends largely on how they look, and it is this extent that the second scale measures. Aesthetically, they’re an unwelcome blemish on the screen. Subtitles, by their very nature, interfere with the image. This approach is specific and easy to use, and it works well across all the appearance parameters. Looking at the scale from this perspective, if one appearance gives fewer/shorter saccades and fixations than another - and thus leads to faster reading - then it has better readability. To achieve that, I came up with this simple categorization of subtitle quality parameters: Because I want the framework to be comprehensive, along with the usual it should also include non-traditional approaches to subtitling like integrated titles and VFX, newer forms of media such as video games and virtual reality, outdated and novel technologies, etc. Indeed, there are so many things to consider: the medium, the type of subtitling, the presentation method, the target audience, the display size, and so on. Structure is necessary - otherwise, the countless factors and variables can make the analysis disjointed and confusing. Dyson, Thomas Sanocki, Tobias Frere-Jones, Kevin Larson, Nick Kolenda and Joe Clark, this first part lays the foundation for the analysis and tackles one of the parameters - the font.īefore I can start talking about subtitle appearance, I need to establish a proper framework. Inspired by the work of Keith Rayner, Tim J. That’s why I decided to write this article series: to share some of my findings and, perhaps, stimulate further investigation.
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Much research went into finding out how to best spot, segment, condense, translate and position timed text, but when it comes to the visual dimension, there isn’t much up-to-date information available online. However, one aspect of subtitling remains largely uncharted to this day, and it is subtitle appearance - that is, the way subtitles look. Since then, this academic field has seen a huge increase in popularity and acknowledgement as a separate branch of translation studies. To my knowledge, the history of subtitling research dates back to 1957, when Simon Laks released his pioneering work Le Sous-titrage de films: Sa technique, son esthétique.
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