Psychology of fonts/typography

By Ana Etienne -Escudero

I decided to further research fonts, as it will give me clear understanding on how fonts work and enables me to use the right type of font for my ancillary work. Choosing the right font can evoke the right emotions from the reader, amplify the meaning of the words and gain the expected reaction from them.

Different types of fonts and the psychology behind them

• Serif fonts – Times New Roman or Baskerville. These fonts are characterised by a slight decorative projection added as an embellishment to a letter. Implying a sense of tradition, respectability and reliability, this type of font would be good for a company looking to emphasise its pedigree or heritage . However a younger crowd might see this type of font as ‘old’.

• Sans serif fonts – Helvetica, Ariel or Franklin Gothic. Clean, simple and futuristic, Sans Serif typefaces are very popular, especially in educational applications. They’re easy to read, which makes them ideal for the visually impaired and work well for companies wanting to send out a straightforward message and give the impression of reliability and honesty.

• Modern fonts – these fonts include Futura, Avant Garde and Century Gothic. Strong and dependable but with a touch of sophistication. Modern fonts are ideal for fashion lines, companies in niche markets and luxury brands.

• Script fonts –handwritten fonts can be used very nicely but proceed with caution needs to be taken when using a font like Zapfino or Scriptina. This font can be hard for people to understand a message and remember .However, these can convey elegance, femininity or creativity. A font that looks genuinely handwritten can also give your design a sense of informality or spontaneity.

• Novelty fonts – these typefaces are a bit different from the norm and generally you wouldn’t want to read a lot of text in them. However, they can work well for logos and singular words. This font can be seen as childish , so if its for a young audience for children it will be conveyed well.

• Custom fonts – For companies like Coca-Cola, Disney and Pinterest customised fonts have become synonymous with their brand. It’s an expensive option but one that gives a unique look that stands out, consistency across your brand and above all the freedom to do what you want.

Thick and thin strokes

Serif font

San Serif font Plain and strokes have even width

Modern fontMore style and ideal for fashion lines

How fonts are perceived

Psychology in TypographyTypography is the style and appearance of printed matter.

Key elements of Typography

TypefaceArial

Times

Georgia

A group of characters, letters and numbers that share the same design

Georgia ItalicGeorgia BoldGeorgia Bold Italic

A specific style of typeface with a set of width, size and weight

Line lengthThe distance occupied by the text that is present between the right and left margins in one line.

LeadingThe space between baselines, the lines upon which letters, for example “sit”

KerningThis is the white space between individual characters and many fonts come with a default kerning value to make the space between letters look more natural.

TrackingTracking is used to adjust the space uniformly over a range of characters to make the lines of type even.It is also known as letter spacing . Tracking can affect the character destination of the passage.

Finding fonts used for real media (advertisement)

Based on the further research I have done for fonts I’ve been observing music advertisement and realised that modern fonts, san serif and script fonts are the most common font used. These font are informal and friendly, which convinces the audience into reading the advert.

Apply font to my ancillary work

Before creating my digipak and advertisement I will be experimenting with different fonts to see which suites the genre of music, artist personality and message I want to share to the audience. It is likely that I will be using a San serif , modern or scrip font as I think they would be most appropriate and follow the conventions of a pop artist digipak and advertisement.