This paper points out central questions regarding the nature of multimodality and of conceptual viewpoint. It asserts that multimodality has to be rethought as a varied but cohesive phenomenon, and it briefly elucidates both embodied multimodal interaction (in an example from stand-up comedy) and the meaning emergence in artifacts relying on both text and image (in an example of a poster with an environmental message). Accordingly, the category of multimodal constructions already recognized for embodied interactions should be extended to include conventionalized image/text combinations. Finally, it stresses that viewpoint is the key concept that illustrates how communicators employ the various modalities for cohesive communicative aims across the broad series of artifacts and multimodal forms debated in the special issue introduced by this paper, covering gesture in political speeches, viewpoint in comics, grammatical forms in Internet memes, ASL, stance expressions, eye gaze, and embodied responses to objects and architectural artifacts.