Let's talk about fonts.

The first important property of a font is that it MUST be readable. Not like regular text in a book or an email, but readable on a graphic, at thumbnail size, on a small-screen device. Readability requires

–limiting the number of words - I play with phrasing to minimize word count - meme text is like a headline on an article

–placing the text on a clean part of the graphic, or modifying the background until the graphic doesn't compete with the text

–size. I play around with text scale on almost every meme, not only to fit the text over an unbusy part of the graphic, but to make it as large as possible given the style of the meme. I'm ALWAYS thinking readability.

It has been said that mixed-case text is more readable than all caps. This is debatable. I think it depends on the font. 90% of the time my text is mixed-case.

A second property of fonts is what I call flavor. Each font conveys a certain psychological impression, does it not? Visit a site like https://www.dafont.com/ or https://typezebra.com/

Examine hundreds of fonts and you will certainly notice differences.

A font can be dignified, solemn, careless, silly, bookish, it can connote an historical era, it can be ponderous, scant, futuristic, personal, etc. etc.

Does the memer pick a font to match what the meme is trying to express? Or do they always select Impact Condensed all caps to get that "internet meme" look?

Anon asked for some sans-serif fonts.

I troll the free font download sites regularly. On Saturdays. Sometimes I just get tired of the same old fonts and pick new ones. I rotate my fonts. Rarely do I use a system font.

I prefer Open Type fonts if I can get them. True Type fonts are OK too. OTF permits font designers to use ligatures, which allows one to create a different custom look.

Pausing here to create some font graphics for next post.

Again, if the meme isn't readable (or at least a "grabber" phrase readable) on a small screen device, you failed. They won't click it, and the opportunity is lost. (Of course, some wonderful memes have no text at all; what I'm saying applies if text is present.)

>>333

1. Some sans serif font samples

2. Hashtag line on Chicken meme is URW Gothic.

3. That's Turnpike at the top of Admiral Lyons.

4. Digitalt on Cherish America.

An all-caps serif font

1. Alegreya on America is Working Again.

Here's an example I want to critique re: font usage.

1. The Impact Condensed font is readable, yes. But why did the memer use white text on a white background? As a result, they had to shadow the text. Looks really weird, and readability is poor. Think of the last glossy magazine ad you saw. Have you ever seen outlined white text with a black shadow on a white background? Almost never. I dare you to find an example of that in the print media, and if you do find one, there will be an obvious reason why the style was used.

2. I would have switched the font color and used black or dark text over the white background.

3. Or conversely, left the text white and darkened the background beneath it. Here I picked a predominant color from the background on the right, and flood-filled the white area on the left. The white text is in a superior layer and unaffected by the flood-fill. If you're using gimp (my preferred graphics program), that's the Bucket Fill tool.

1. Thought it would be fun to alter a cartoon by adding my own text in a handwritten font. Snooperman was on the original graphic and it pops out just fine. Is that sufficient to motivate a click, to make the tiny font readable?

Obamagate on the shirt turned out pretty good.

Unfortunately I tried to cram too much text into the space. ONE of those 3 bullet points would have been enough. It would have been better to make 3 separate memes, each with one phrase. There's a lot of wisdom in the axiom: Seven Words or Less

LESSON: Keep a couple of handwritten fonts on hand, but use sparingly.

1. Other handwritten fonts I've used in the past. These don't stay on the system for long, maybe use 1-2 times then discard.

3.

4.

5.

1. Excellent info. Memes that impart facts are greatly appreciated.

That's a lot of text though.

What if seven versions of this meme were made?

Keep line 1.

Keep last line.

For the middle, use just ONE of the seven phrases.

Then the text can be larger.

You CANNOT impart more than about 4 ideas to the public in a 1-hour presentation. Public speakers know that. People trained to speak to the press know that.

A meme has less chance to influence someone than a one-hour presentation with a deck of slides. It registers on the viewer for a fraction of a second only. Maybe a couple of seconds if you're very lucky.

So why would we think we can impart 7+ ideas in a single image?

It's impossible.

LESSON: It's better to make a series of memes than cram too much info into one meme.

>>377

>Did you check out?

>>220

>Lots of great clues for you guys.

Read it a couple of years ago.

Here are the notes I made in February 2018. Thought I could motivate others to read it if I did a little abstract on its application to us.

Now I should re-read with the perspective of doing this for 2.5 years.

A memeAnon’s notes on

Memetics—A Growth Industry in US Military Operations by Major Michael B. Prosser, USMC. A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Operational Studies, academic year 2005-2006 (dtic.mil/dtic/tr/fulltext/u2/a507172.pdf)

My notes are not inclusive. I’m focused mainly on my side of things – meme making – and how this paper applies to /Qresearch/. There is a second PDF I haven't studied yet.

Memeanon's Notes

→To attack an ideology, assault a transcendant or central idea, or group of ideas

→Memes are cultural bits of info, transmitted mind-to-mind (via whatever media are prevalent)

→How do you persuade/dissuade enemy combatants? Persuade/dissuade the undecided?

→Analyze cultural ideas, isolate their parts

→Also includes means of spreading the ideas/memes

→Clinical disease analogy to the spread of ideologies: adaptive response of both disease and host organism

→Intentionally persuade large audiences through subtle or overt contact

→Disciplines of sociology, anthropology, cognitive science, behavioral game theory

→Military killing of “infected” people to eradicate an ideology sometimes backfires, transitory effect or even opposite of intended effect (martyrs, hardens opposing position).

→Nonlinear problem

→Requires more than token efforts and resources

→Feedback loop between meme makers, observe effect on target population

→Understand target audience’s aims, mindsets, ways of achieving their strategic objectives

→Metaphysical battlespace fought over culture and ideals.

→“Enemies” are already highly organized and weaponized in the meme warfare space

→Ought to be formalized and resourced within U.S. military + allies, rather than ad hoc as now [circa 2007]

———————————————————–

Memeanon's further observations

→Similarity between memes and what the advertising industry has been practicing (weaponizing!) for >50 years

→Feedback loop is essential between meme-makers, those disseminating them, and those observing/analyzing changes in the target population: not only how well it’s spreading, best vectors of spread, recruitment of new spreaders, immediate reactions, but more broadly how to discern/measure actual changes in target pop’s ideology, and feed this data back to meme generation unit.

→Continuous adaptive improvement loop

→Ideas and concepts are subjective and hard to quantify

We could do more in the area of the feedback loop.

There is also a potential division of labor between - autists with deep cultural knowledge (movies, TV, games.)

• autists with psychological insight into target pop

• autists who know how to frame ideology-challenging ideas in a way that is funny, sardonic, ironic

• graphic artists who can convert these ideas into visual form

• meme distributors (droppers) who are in a position to observe immediate feedback and adoption of the ideas by target pop

• autists who can analyze changes in target pop's ideology

Let's say you have a specific text to put on a graphic, and a place to put it in.

Where do you put the line breaks?

Do you just let the text wrap?

Or do you manage the line breaks

so that each line is a phrase or clause?

Yep. It matters.

I am careful not to split infinitives, split 'the' from the following noun, split 'President' from 'Trump', etc.

Sometimes (if it works) out I also like to shape the text into a taper or make it parallel part of a graphic.

Here is a pretty good example illustrating line breaks in logical places and text with a pleasing contour.

Some would say aesthetics matter.

All memefags have experienced a bad crop.

The edges of the meme are not trimmed properly. See the white around the upper and left borders?

A bad crop looks careless.

Sometimes you just can't see it, then it bites you later when the image is posted in a different context.

So open the image in a different app (e.g. image viewer instead of image editor) or place a temporary background layer under the image.

LESSON: Double check after cropping.