The Psychology of Fonts
Techquickie
·Techquickie
·2017-05-06
·
1,091 words · ~5 min read
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There's no shortage of sites and companies that try to draw you in with
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slickl looking graphics and marketing. Think of the casinos on the Las Vegas
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strip or Google's much discussed recent logo change or even the sign we put in
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our front lobby to try to make it look like we're a real company to some
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degree. And the reasons for this go beyond the speculative research has
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indicated that fonts can actually affect our physical perceptions. One experiment
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involved serving identical jelly beans to two different groups labeled with the
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words eat me. However, eat me was printed in a rounded font for one group
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and a jagged font for the other group. And it turned out that the people in the
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jagged font group perceived the jelly beans as quite a bit more sour than the
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other group due to the subconscious suggestion from the way the words were
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written. So, the reason that organizations all don't just use one
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plain readable font for everything like Helvetica or Ariel is because different
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fonts have a real power to make us feel certain ways and conjure up emotions
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that might make us more likely to spend our money if we're at a store or to feel
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a bit calmer if we're at the dentist or something. But how can mere letters on a
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page or a sign kick us right in the fields? A lot of this has to do with
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perceptions of fonts that we develop over the years through a process called
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psychological priming, similar to how people form stereotypes and first
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impressions. For example, sand serif fonts have become much more common in
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modern life due to their widespread use on computer screens. A sans serif font,
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by the way, is anything that doesn't have seraps, which are those little
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lines at the edges of letters that make them easier to read on a printed page.
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But since monitors were actually lower resolution in terms of dots per inch
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than books or magazines for a long time,
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many websites and computer graphic designers used sand serif fonts as it
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was thought seraps would actually make text on lowres screens harder to read.
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Nowadays, with high-res HD displays, this was less of an issue. But Sanser's
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perception as modern and clean persisted, leading to it becoming a
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popular font style for startups and online businesses that want to appear
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current and forwardthinking. Sanser's simplicity has also made it a go-to for
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places that want to appear stable and professional. In fact, many people
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associate the sans serif font Helvetica with the IRS in the states since they
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use it heavily on their tax forms. Of course, on the flip side, its minimalism
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and popularity as a modern font back in the 1960s might explain why hipsters
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have taken to it so much. And speaking of hipsters, many fonts have fallen out
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of favor due to their overuse in certain applications. Comic Sands, for instance,
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was originally supposed to be just a fun font reminiscent of old comic books.
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Now, it draws tons of eye due to its association with tacky flyers for child-
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ccentric activities. Impact doesn't quite annoy people the way comic sands
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does, but with advice animal memes being as prevalent as they are, many places
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have started to shy away from using it due to the strong association with Bad
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Luck Brian and Insanity Wolf, which can
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make things seem less trustworthy. And while super tacky fonts like Papyrus
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don't usually have a lot of staying power due to things like restaurants
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massively overusing it, they can still
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be effective for building a cohesive
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brand identity. A commonly cited example
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for this is the famous Disney logo, which people recognize immediately
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despite the D and the Y not really looking how they're supposed to.
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Harderto- read fonts are even intentionally used by some restaurants
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and stores to suggest that something on sale is higher quality, and it took a
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lot of effort to make. And as marketing strategies and tastes continue to
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evolve, what kind of fonts strike us as fresh, trit, or even offensive are sure
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to change as well. But if that's too much to keep up with, you can always
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play it safe and use the affforementioned Helvetica, which was
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named after the Latin name for Switzerland because, well, you guessed
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it, it's neutrality. So, just like Switzerland, it stayed out of wars.
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Maybe using Helvetica can help you avoid conflict as well, unless someone who
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reads it had a traumatic experience with a bar of toolbar. With the linda.com
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today. Thanks for watching, guys. If you liked it, like it. And maybe there's a
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psychology side of things. I'm having a lot of fun with these videos. Also, check out Channel Super Fun. They have a
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fun font. Pretty sure it's not comic sands, though, so you're safe.