Talking about Speech Balloons: Foreign Language & Fonts

In the fourth part of the speech balloons series, the different methods used to display foreign language in a speech balloon is discussed. Also the topic of how fonts are used to designate characteristics.

Foreign Language

Foreign language may be conveyed using numerous methods. An artist should be consistent with one method during an entire project.

Some artists place foreign language dialogue in brackets.

A foreign language can also appear inside a speech balloon with a translation located in a footnote.

Foreign phrases can be displayed in italics. (When you start a project, make sure the font family that you are using includes italics.  I did not check that before starting this project, which caused me to use a different font from the other comic examples in this series. Learn from my mistakes.)

Some artists display a foreign language by using a different font that represents that country.

This example leads to our next topic, fonts.

Fonts

There are many different types of fonts that can be used to display the characteristics of a speaker. The most important aspect of a font is that it should be legible to a reader. Also, restraint should be used on the number of fonts used for a project. A reader can get distracted or overwhelmed if each character has their own designated font. Here are a few examples:

Next time: Other Types of Speech Balloons (Part 5 of 7) will be discussed.