We love a good font; well we can invest a lot of time deciding which font to use for our marketing pages.
I have mentioned it before but will also mention it here, often what we think looks cool and groovy to us, actually doesn’t for our audience.
So, developing an understanding of Fonts and their usage is a definite bonus when trying to get a message across succinctly and impactfully.
What sort of fonts should we use? My suggestion is to look at what sort of message you are wanting to convey, what is the product you are putting forwards and how quickly do you want the information to be absorbed.
I need to first give a brief description of the difference between Font and Typeface
Typeface is a group and a font is a particular style within that group – Now that was quick :)
Now let’s look at typefaces
Serif typeface contains fonts that has small lines (Serifs) on the edges and is very easy to read when printed out – some fonts of this type are Georgia and Times New Roman
San Serif consists of fonts that don’t have a serif attached to them such as Arial, Verdena and Helvettica
Script is a Typeface that look somewhat like handwriting and includes fonts such as Comic Sans and Lucida
Modern typeface usually has a look of thin and thick lines in the lettering and has fonts such as Rockwell
Monospace Typeface which as it has in its name, greater spaces (or Kerning) in between the letters and often looks like it has come from a typewriter. Fonts such as Courier and Monaco are in this family.
So now we have looked at Typefaces lets delve into the emotional world of Fonts
Much like colour, fonts also will illicit an emotional response from people and these emotional responses will determine how responsive a person will be to your promotion. (Colour and emotions is another Topic that I will cover, stay tuned)
This is not hard and fast, as people are subjective thinkers, to a degree, and may react quite differently to what I am going to list below,
Some of the documented (Research by survey) emotive content is as such
With these in mind you can make a decision as to what sort of font you might want to use for your marketing purposes, bearing in mind that you want to get your message across clearly, succinctly and impactfully.
This is just a brief rambling about Typeface and fonts. There is a whole plethora of information out there on this subject. I had two cohorts when I was doing my Post Grad studies that wrote their thesis on the subject.
This alone will, I hope, make you want to find out about the story of typeface and look at the meaning behind what you are saying and how you will say it.
A post note; remember that people have memory and for some people a certain type of font will conjure up a response, eg: Bills for instance come in a typeface that if seen again may just illicit a negative feeling in some.
Seriously you say?? Do people really pay that much attention to the font being used. The answer is No they don’t, consciously, but sub consciously they do, and it is the sub conscious that will work alongside the strongest of emotions, and it is the subconscious that drives impulse.
And on a really corny ending,
Two fonts walk into the bar, and the barman says, “Sorry lads, we don’t serve your type.” (Origin Unknown)
