WARNING: This episode contains swearing, suggestive language, and references that some listeners may prefer to avoid.How does a simple font elicit such strong emotions? Is Comic Sans the villain we've made it out to be, or is it just misunderstood and misused? Listen in as Comic Sans stands trial for crimes against typeface, obstruction of font protocol and indecent exposure on documents both printed and digital.While the kangaroo court is in session, join host Kyla Sims and graphic designer Craig Rozynski, the creator of comics sans’ cool uncle, Comic Neue. He shares his insights as to why he felt the goofiest of fonts needed a redesign. We also hear from Dr. Dawn Shaikh, a human factors psychologist who wrote her doctoral thesis on the Personality of Cleartype Fonts. She digs deep into her research to provide a glimpse into where Comic Sans came from, what it was meant for (trust us, it isn’t your résumé) and what all the negative connotations say about the biases that shape our communication norms. Do you work in communications? Join us at Staffbase's VOICES Conference in NYC April 26-27th, 2023. Get your ticket at voices.staffbase.com/us and use promocode VOICES-PODCAST-25 for 25% off your ticket.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

WARNING: This episode contains swearing, suggestive language, and references that some listeners may prefer to avoid.In this episode, Kyla sits down with Professor Timothy Jay, psycholinguist and the foremost expert on swearing and curse words. Together they unpack the origins of benign office jargon, how certain naughty words develop from childhood, and the story of one comedian's infamous bit that ended up in front of the Supreme Court. We also hear from Jennifer Saul, Chair in Social and Political Philosophy of Language at the University of Waterloo. She shares how one presidential campaign upended decades of political linguistic thought and inspired her own research into deceptive speech and linguistic devices. Do you work in communications? Join us at Staffbase's VOICES Conference in NYC April 26-27th, 2023. Get your ticket at voices.staffbase.com/us and use promocode VOICES-PODCAST-25 for 25% off your ticket.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Our host Kyla Sims sits down with Tech and Culture reporter Christianna Silva from Mashable. Together, they unpack why our world is obsessed with constantly trying to pursue internet virality. Patrick Yurick, Head Comic at MakingComics.com also joins the show to tell the tale of his own internet virality and what he learned. From unpacking the neuroscience to recounting stories of going viral for the wrong reasons, this episode will make you question whether going viral is really what it’s cracked up to be. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

In this episode of Infernal Communication, host Kyla Sims sits down with microbiologist and science communicator Dr. Siouxsie Wiles to talk about arguably the most successful communication campaign of our generation. Together Kyla and Dr. Wiles walk us through the journey of collaborating with award-winning illustrator Toby Morris to make "flatten the curve" go viral and potentially saving millions of lives, to the aftermath and fallout. Do you work in communications? Join us at Staffbase's VOICES Conference in NYC April 26-27th, 2023. Get your ticket at voices.staffbase.com/us and use promocode VOICES-PODCAST-25 for 25% off your ticket.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

In this episode of Infernal Communication, Kyla sits down with Director of Design Strategy at Mural and author Stephen P. Anderson, to get to the heart of the intangible request that infuriates communicators and designers alike: "Make it pretty." They dive into Stephen's article “In Defence of Eye Candy” and discuss the value of “Beauty” as a design concept and what pitfalls professionals make in trying to capture it. Then we go even deeper with Forbes contributor, and disability and beauty advocate Xian Horn. She challenges us to interrogate our monoculture of beauty standards and visual communication, and helps us find more meaning in the request to “Make it pretty”. Do you work in communications? Join us at Staffbase's VOICES Conference in NYC April 26-27th, 2023. Get your ticket at voices.staffbase.com/us and use promocode VOICES-PODCAST-25 for 25% off your ticket.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Communication is hard. Being a communications professional is even harder. In each episode of Infernal Communication, we take a deeper look at the wild little fires communicators have to put out every day. We stop, drop and uncover the surprising reach of these oh-so-common problems in internal comms and beyond. Join Kyla from Staffbase as she recruits authors, scientists, and experts to help get some fresh perspectives that will soothe the burn of your latest communication snafu, and help you think differently about your work and life. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.