Interview With Talya Perper — Dan Rhatigan

I we're here today to talk about Teen Titans Go and believe it or not there's an amazing episode of Teen Titans Go that was all about typography which blew me away a friend of mine told me about this and I was expecting that oh there was an episode of the show and maybe there was a font joke in there about comic Sands or something which is usually the level of what you see and stuff like this and when I watched the episode I was blown away that it turned out to be an amazing discussion of typography and the import of fonts and what they do in the world and what they mean in like the most inviting way so I had to roll back and check and see who wrote such a thing and I uh track down via Twitter and my my going nuts about how excited I was on this uh the incredible Talia perper who uh who wrote um this episode and tal is with us today to talk more about what she does at the show um and how this came together and how exactly she made this amazing thing about fonts in this really inviting way that all people could enjoy welcome Talia I'm so happy to be here I like I'm I know we've already had this conversation before at previous events but like I I love being able to talk about it with new people and like thank you so much for having me I I think anything that helps more people see this particular episode of Teen Titans Go can only be for the good because it really is an incredible introduction to typography for people who don't think about it um and for people who know a lot about typography what really impressed me about it is that it's actually very respectful of like what we care so much about uh choosing fonts and using fonts um why don't you tell us a little bit about what you do Titans Go sure so my official job is storyboard artists uh so that's what I do full-time for the show but I also had an opportunity to pitch some episodes that I wrote the script for because usually when we're boarding we get the script it's already taken care of but I was like I want to write a script uh and this was one of the first ideas that I pitched that miraculously went through all the way with like very few issues uh and it's inspired mostly by uh my first job when I moved out to LA uh when I was still taking art classes but like paying the bills with um like I worked at this graphic design studio that focused on movie posters uh and I was using my film degree to like watch the movie synopsize the movie The designers don't have to watch the movie now uh so I learned a lot about design while I was there and that was something that really had a big impact on me this whole idea of like the form must meet the function which I'm sure is uh applicable to a lot of different careers that involve art so uh I used what I learned about like the culture of font snobbery and applied it to an episode because I figured you know I don't think they've done anything like this before on Titans so let's see how it goes that's awesome and the umh can you say a little about bit of bit about what specifically the role of being a doing storyboarding is oh right uh so a storyboarders gets the script and then they visualize what the script uh has written uh in a way that is now feasible for animators and designers to to actually make into a fully realized episode so everything that you see on the screen in terms of composition in terms of character acting uh like rough designs that the designers later like uh with their Magic Touch like this is all the blueprint for what ends up being a fully animated episode all right that's cool now I know that uh there were some questions about whether or not you'd be able to show actual clips of the real episode so what we have for everyone to see to get an to get an idea of what you do as a storyboard artist is we have this clip of um sort of the a storyboard visualization of a part of the episode with sound um but I love this because uh it is a segment from the show which is a quick introduction that cyborg gives about why fonts are important um but let's show that clip uh so people can get a sense of the tone of how you brought fonts to the world in this episode of Zim dings yeah typography is an art beasy allow me to illustrate for exhibit a we have an announcement for a serious business meeting at 3:30 in the conference room that does looks like serious business and for exhibit B you can see there's a quitty kitty Jambo we at 5:30 in the rec center o I would love to go to the pretty kitty jambore but would you be interested in some serious business oh no now that business ain't got no seriousness at all and what about a pretty kitty champine what evil magic is this that was super fun I hope you all loved it as much as I did um so um I loved this idea that uh the font snobbery creeps into the story where cyborg is freaking out because uh there are fonts that people are supposed to use to do certain things um and really the episode uh doesn't even doesn't even just let that go without being examined um what's really really fun as The Story Goes by is that actually um as the Teen Titans go through and they have these Adventures um they you know it's set up where the super villain is someone who actually uh talks about a lot of fonts and who is the uh a much maligned inventor of a dingbats font called dings in Universe uh and he he he wished that it had got the same kind of respect as the as the creator of all these other fonts have done um but what's was also fascinating to me again as I was sort of expecting this to be like a very uh like most common denominator bit of font jokes um was that you actually did seem to like draw from a lot of different type Styles and talking and thinking about it um but what kind of fonts were available to you why did you choose some of the ones that you did in that example that I was just sh oh yeah that's right so um uh the reason I chose some of these fonts was just because we work in Adobe Flash or adobe animate now uh and these were all the ones that were preloaded in Flash that I was trying to get some good variety in there uh but I was also at the same time trying to make it accessible to Children uh and these are the types of fonts that would I I assume be common on most School computers so like a a child could reasonably have come across these and been like oh yeah I remember bow house I remember trun Pro like some of these are pretty iconic fonts so like it's it's nothing that like a kid could see and it would go over their head necessarily I think that's that's what's great about it is because the you know it if you'd gone down the route of like picking very esoteric things that maybe were like in jokes for design what would be the point if most people couldn't track those down right away and sort of like have this moment of being like hey this is something that I can pick and I can have some control over it um and there there's this other interesting aspect of the story of Zim dings where uh he is taken over um he's exiled to an island um and where he uh encounters a native population um and then forces them to speak in this language based on his his dingbats that he put up and there was this surprising aspect in the story about um uh the nature of colonialism that he like encountered this culture and assumed they had no language or culture of their own and he imposed one based on his own typography um and when you and I first talked about this you were surprised when I said that this is actually a big point of discussion in the world of typography these days but how how did you come about this colonialism aspect well it's interesting because uh like you know I'm trying to create this new character right that's just for this one episode so I have to like make it clear that he's a villain but also motivated in a meaningful way that he doesn't think of himself as a villain uh and I thought it would be funny to have some sort of origin story for wingdings where that kids would find entertaining like oh it's actually the secret code or like like this guy who came up with it was like maligned by the commun I mean I know that's not the real story but like I thought it would be funny if he got like exiled to this special place that they now have to explore and I kind of based it a little bit off of um Heart of Darkness the book that uh Apocalypse Now is based off of sure because then it it it lends itself to a very clear structure of like okay they enter the new world they go into the village inside the village is like a secret lab and like it it just progresses in a very straightforward way uh and I added this extra colonialism aspect to it because that was a big theme in in the book which I read in high school so uh I was just sort of blending things from my life and and film analysis like film school stuff uh but I I I was that's why I was surprised and happily surprised that it ended up being a big theme in typography as a concept period so that was kind of a happy accident it was great the way came together now I you mentioned that another big influence on sort of some of your approach to the visual gags in this was the Phantom toll booth which led to these amazing lettering typographic G gags that were scattered throughout the episode um yes that was a huge influence on me the Comic Sans crbs that they encounter once once they uh arrive on the island um as well as some of these these other guys you see really when you get to the island in the episode that every detail is actually a sort of great lettering gag and it just never stops and it's so much fun could you tell us a little bit more about uh how you went down that path well I I love the to Booth even though I mean it came out before my time but that used to air on Cartoon Network fairly regularly uh and I always loved those kind of meta jokes and Teen Titans Go is also very into that sort of sense of humor so I thought it would be a good blend I also have been posting Clips to Tik Tok now and people are like is this a word world reference and it's like not really but I mean I guess it is like it's not a far cry to be like okay yeah like make the words what they are it's I don't know it's just a I thought it was a Charming concept and I also storyboarded on this episode so I wrote it thinking like oh this is gonna be so cool and then I started boarding it I was like uh oh like no I would draw it all what what I think what I think is great about it though is that it it's it's part of how there winds up with there being so many layers of typographic visual jokes um you know there there is a sort of a a certain kind of style of like lettering or display font that you know you see pop up around like holidays you have a lot of like spooky Halloweeny fonts and things where things look like things or you know like the classic uh you know the way that the word ice gets spelled out on refrigerators for ice creams and things and I I just kind of loved that there's this Spirit of the letters are spelling out what things are but they're also taking on these visual characteristics to be illustrative as well um and it was cool that the just the gags keep like hitting on so many layers like that all through this which I think are a nice way that sort of shows how typography is often used by designers to sort of like slip in things about the personality of things without having to necessarily screen it they sort of it just helps you helps you get the vibe as yeah I've always been of the mind that like the form must meet the function it like if it's going to work I mean like you get that same Motif in write like character design and writing too where like bad design is like oh this looks really cool but it has nothing to do with the story uh or like serving it in any way so I I'm always trying to be aware of that sure how how have people reacted to this episode now now that it's been out for a while I mean I know that I was ranting about it on Twitter and people who followed me seemed to to get it but um have have more people contacted you about this I think it's hit the hardest for sure in the type Community uh because a few months after it came out that's when you retweeted it uh because I post my Clips on Twitter regularly and uh and that I got a lot of really sweet comments from families especially saying like I was able to talk to my kid about my job as there was little episode and like that just really warms my heart because that's like a huge W for me as a as a writer for kids stuff oh yeah uh and I mean like I've been posting stuff to Tik Tok too but like it doesn't hit the same way I think for older kids because they're kind of maybe like beyond that I don't know like I think the the the biggest draw of teen times go is that it's a co- viewing show like parents watch with their kids so making that a positive experience for people so that like parents can watch and not feel like ug you know when they're watching their kids shows uh that's that's extremely fulfilling for me um I I love the idea that this is really successful as a way to like you know that an adult who cares about typography can like you know help help some like a kid make sense of it because they're of course gonna encounter fonts like all throughout throughout their lives um and this why I was so impressed that actually it was it was like filled with so much like really good information about like why you shouldn't be a snob about fonts and like choosing the right thing doesn't mean that like it shouldn't be accessible to everyone right right exactly at the end um uh cyborg has to overcome his font snoby to be able to join the others in battle uh because they all Fus with different font fs and with their powers combined they defeat the villain uh they have to become the league of garbage fonts yeah they actually embrace what the fonts are and what they can do which honestly was like a very like super super idea I loved it yeah because people on fonts like comic Sands or whatever or Papyrus as like because they are abused in a lot of ways but it's because they're used outside of the the intention of uh you know their personalities and stuff like that so I think it really just depends on how you use these fonts to great effect yeah I've I've always had this Maxim that like just about any font that I've ever encountered has has a place where it can be used well with some care and some thought about what the personality is um you can make anything work at some point point for something I think that's a spirit that comes across really well in this um where that you know even some you know again the much maligned comic Sands was the joke that I was expecting this to all be about and I loved that it was so respectful at that the idea is like it's not bad just because people like it it's not bad because you know you've seen it used in ways you don't really like and you just have to sort of embrace that these things have individual personalities and people do like them just because they've seen them a lot yeah and I mean I was also influenced by this other video game that I'm sure many type people are aware of called undertale uh where two of the characters uh are named Sans and Papyrus and their their dialogue pops up as Sans and Papyrus as opposed to everyone else's dialogue which is just the default and it really tells you a lot about their personalities obviously I couldn't really like directly reference it in the show because we would need to like get the rights and that's expensive but like in terms of just the vibe that I was trying to give off it's like oh yeah like these all these fonts have personalities they're like characters uh and that's really fun to think about like to let your imagination go wild that's totally awesome um thank you so much for having this chat about with me again and for writing this episode and sharing people you so much I'm so glad you enjoyed it yeah where uh where do you suggest that people go to find out uh more more about what you do and see some more of the fun things that you do oh sure uh I'm on Twitter Instagram and Tik Tok at uh t r t a r i tarari uh and uh yeah and I'm also on YouTube as Talia perper you can watch all my storyboard Clips Etc on the web thank you so much great keep at it it's great stuff and thank you so much yeah thank you bye bye bye