Neil Cohn's blog
Split planes
Submitted by Neil Cohn on May 18, 2008 - 23:28
I haven't gotten a newspaper at home in years, but every now and then my father sends me clippings of comics or articles. The comic that he seems to send the most is Pearls Before Swine which has a periodic flair for formalism.
In the last set that he sent, the characters do a fair amount of walking on the borders of the panels (Here, Here, and Here):
"Awareness" of panel borders by
On PowerPoint
Submitted by Neil Cohn on May 16, 2008 - 00:41
I was recently asked by the VizThink people to devote a post to the prompt: PowerPoint: A powerful tool poorly used or a poor tool overused?, so... here goes...
I do think that Powerpoint (or in my preference, Keynote) can be a powerful tool that is misused, but its functions and autofills can also be overused. In many ways this is not the fault of the program, but the fault of the users for
CogSci Comics
Submitted by Neil Cohn on May 13, 2008 - 11:08
I am currently in the refractory period of the semester, enjoying the freedom of summer break starting and the ability to work on all those projects I usually don't get around to doing during the school year. I've now plotted out at least three papers I plan to write, plus a visual language class syllabus to refine.
I should have some more substantial blogging to do soon, but in the meantime,
Universcale
Submitted by Neil Cohn on May 5, 2008 - 13:21
I've been ridiculously too busy to blog lately, largely due to my upcoming exam/project on biopsychology. Once that's over it's summertime! (i.e. time for me to work on projects otherwise not given enough attention while in classes). In the meantime...
Here's an interesting site that attempts to show the relative sizes of things in the universe. I like how its using digital tools to get at
Podcast: "Grammar" in visual language
Submitted by Neil Cohn on April 25, 2008 - 15:30
I've done another podcast with the folks at VizThink, this time debating Yuri Engelhart and Dave Gray on what constitutes a visual language and the nature of visual language grammar.
This new format allows you to skip around to different chapters to jump straight to parts of interest. (Please note, I object to the insinuation in the chapter title that "comics" can equal "visual language"):
Navigating page layouts = defining "comics"?
Submitted by Neil Cohn on April 23, 2008 - 00:44
One of the topics I debated closing out my new essay on page layout (pdf) with was its relationship to McCloud's definition of "comics."
As most know, McCloud's definition is that "comics" are "juxtaposed sequential images in deliberate sequence." Yet, he never places any constraints on that. He means all sequential images are "comics" — regardless of the characteristics of content.
On the
Clever Dumbo?
Submitted by Neil Cohn on April 20, 2008 - 14:57
The Language Evolution blog posts this interesting youtube video showing an elephant painting a picture of an elephant:
I've vocalized often that as much as there is a debate about whether animals can or do have language (they don't), we know of no animals that draw. By drawing, I mean that they employ tool use to graphically achieve conceptual expression (that is usually iconic).
While it is
Panel Time!
Submitted by Neil Cohn on April 16, 2008 - 12:43
1.5 seconds per panel. That's how long it takes on average for wordless panels to be read.
I recently completed a very exciting study that asked people to read four-panel comic strips one panel at a time. In this "Self-Paced Reading" task, they see four boxes on the screen, and with each button press a subsequent panel appears in the sequence. Only one panel is shown on the screen at a time.
Navigating Comics Plus
Submitted by Neil Cohn on April 14, 2008 - 13:41
Since various concerns have popped up here and there about my latest essay on page layouts (pdf), I figured I should take the time to reiterate responses to some of them here...
First off, the types of navigation I talk about here are absolutely intended to be part of a broader network of how people move through layouts. Certainly, panel locations aren't the only influence on people's movement
Essay origins
Submitted by Neil Cohn on April 11, 2008 - 08:07
So far I've been very pleased at the response to my latest essay, "Navigating Comics", on how people navigate through page layouts (pdf). As several responses have been rolling in via email and elsewhere, I intend to do a post soon addressing concerns in that feedback. However, I think it'd be informative to first talk about the origins of this paper.
