The inevitable debate begins whenever somebody remarks, “Wait-why are people still making typefaces?” From there, the responses come in rapid succession. Subscribe today-and don’t miss the chance to enter our Type & Lettering Awards ! Perception, 44(2), 111-128.The following article appears in the Fall 2016 issue of Print, currently on newsstands. Depicting visual motion in still images: forward leaning and a left to right bias for lateral movement. Quantifying perceived differences in type styles: An exploratory study. Psychology of onscreen type: Investigations regarding typeface personality, appropriateness, and impact on document perception (Doctoral dissertation). Making products feel special: When metacognitive difficulty enhances evaluation. Word marks: a helpful tool to express your identity: an empirical study regarding fonts of word marks as a tool for transmitting an archetypal identity (Master’s thesis, University of Twente). Journal of Applied Psychology, 24(2), 170. Boldness as a factor in type-design and typography. The effect of brand design on brand gender perceptions and brand preference. Lieven, T., Grohmann, B., Herrmann, A., Landwehr, J.In proceedings of the 9th IAPR International Workshop on Document Analysis Systems (pp. Typeface personality traits and their design characteristics. International Journal of Psychology, 50(5), 372-378. A matter of font type: The effect of serifs on the evaluation of scientific abstracts. Kaspar, K., Wehlitz, T., von Knobelsdorff, S., Wulf, T., & von Saldern, M.Does your company have the right logo? How and why circular-and angular-logo shapes influence brand attribute judgments. Transportation Research Record, 1605(1), 73-79. Effects of font and capitalization on legibility of guide signs. Electronic-Publishing-Chichester, 6, 241-241. Performance differences between Times and Helvetica in a reading task. A spreading-activation theory of semantic processing. Advertising and Promotion Research, 2(2), 25-52. The effect of typeface on advertising and brand evaluations: The role of semantic congruence. The rhetoric of typography: The persona of typeface and text. They can also feel aspirational (Choi & Kang, 2013) and luxurious (Van Rompay, De Vries, Bontekoe, & Tanja- Dijkstra, 2012). Tall fonts convey lightness and quickness. Short fonts can make products feel durable and immovable. Horizontal orientation, for instance, could suggest ‘heaviness’, ‘solidity’, but also ‘inertia’, ‘self-satisfaction’ (Choi & Kang, 2013, p. The meaning potential of horizontality and verticality is ultimately based on our experience of gravity, and of walking upright. Short fonts are closer to the ground, so they feel more stable. Short Fonts Convey Heaviness and Stabilityįont height resembles gravity. Medium weights were most readable (Luckiesh & Moss, 1940). Researchers displayed the word “Memphis” in different font weights to determine the optimal readability. 148)īold fonts also seem masculine because of their resemblance to a bulky stature (Lieven et al., 2015). It may be made to mean ‘domineering’, ‘overbearing’. Boldness may have a more negative meaning. 208) Bold Fonts Are Powerful and Masculineīold fonts seem extreme: Bold can be made to mean ‘daring’, ‘assertive’, or ‘solid’ and ‘substantial’, for instance, and its opposite can be made to mean ‘timid’, or ‘insubstantial’. Seeing these traits in a font will activate your concept of beauty: Typefaces that are lighter in weight (in width and stroke thickness) are seen as delicate, gentle, and feminine, while heavier typefaces are strong, aggressive, and masculine. In most countries, the “standard” for beauty is tall and thin. You also experience spreading activation: Activating a concept will activate all concepts that are connected to it (Collins & Loftus, 1975). Spreading ActivationĪll concepts are connected to related concepts.įor example, your node for “toothpaste” is connected to floss, mouthwash, and everything else that you associate with toothpaste. If you want more details on the underlying mechanisms, you can refer to my book The Tangled Mind. That’s how fonts (and other stimuli) acquire meaning. …dissimilar experiences will weaken connections. …similar experiences will strengthen connections.Seeing a font (e.g., Fraktur) will activate its past meaning - including the semantic meaning (e.g., Nazi Germany) and emotional meaning (e.g., disgust).Īnd you constantly update fonts in your brain. government since it is used by the IRS on tax forms. Fonts also activate past experience: The typeface Fraktur has many associations with Nazi Germany, and Helvetica is commonly associated with the U.S.
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