Have you ever wondered why Extreme Metal band logos are so unreadable? Or what goes into making them? Then you want to keep reading.
Last night I presented my paper ‘Illegible Semantics: Exploring the Design Space of Metal Logos’, which was co-authored by Rene Cutura, Frank Heyen, Michael Sedlmair, Michael Correll, Jason Dykes, and Noeska Smit, at the alt.VIS workshop at IEEE VIS 2021, the premier forum for Visualization research and technology.
It was my first and only and probably likely last academic presentation. Setting it up took me some time – a bit over a week in total! –, though I received precious help and feedback from my co-authors while preparing the script and the video. All in all it was a fun and new experience for me, and the reaction I got for the presentation to the Visualization community made me feel like I actually had a purpose for being there. Like I knew what I was talking about.
Anyway. If you’re interested in seeing and hearing the presentation, check the video below.
The paper is available open access. You can download a PDF version via arXiv.
Readers of this paper may also wish to visit the paper’s companion webpage.
Me and my wife and co-author, Noeska Smit, will be giving an invited talk about our work on metal logos at the University of Bergen next month.
Other than that, I don’t really know. There have been some talk about extending our work, but if and when that happens, it will likely be outside my competence, as it would likely revolve around machine learning and human computer interaction.
But now, now I’m going to take a break from Illegible Semantics!