The Psychology of Fonts

 Font Psychology 

There are numerous ways of using elements to evoke particular emotions on your audience and viewers when working on certain projects. From colors to formats, you, as the creator, can create a whole wide spectrum of emotions in your audience. From happiness to sadness, feelings can be conveyed to the reader through many features. However, there is one element that is often underestimated, which plays a huge role in evoking your audience's emotion to your work- and that element would be fonts. 


Well, fonts aren't used just for aesthetic purposes, they are capable of doing a lot more. Choosing a specific font when you're working on a project is very important because of the influence it can have on the audience. The font or fonts you choose can have a dramatic effect on how the content is viewed and how it's relied to the reader. Font psychology is the study of how a variety of fonts can impact feelings, thoughts, and behaviors. It is very powerful in which it can affect your viewers. 


Serif: Trustworthiness

This font dates back to the Roman time period and from blackletter typefaces. This specific font has "serifs", or little strokes at the edge of every line. Because of its simple design, it's often associated with trust, respect, tradition, and elegance. While it has a simple typeface, the simplicity gives it a high-class look making it the perfect pick for many published pieces of work. In addition, because of the simple letters, the reader feels more at peace and comfortable when reading in this font. From Rolex to Oxford University, this is one of the most used fonts across all sites and written pieces. Its appearance can be described as traditional, mature, formal, and reliable making it the perfect typeface for almost anything. Some of the fonts in this family include the famous Times New Roman, Cambria, and Georgia.


Sans Serif: Friendliness

This typeface didn't become well-known until the 20th century when the modernist movement decided to step out of the comfort zone. Unlike Serif, this typeface does not have serifs attached to the letters. The appearance can be described as modern, sleek, stable, and clean making it affect the viewer's feeling towards the work. Since it's minimal and straightforward, with no fluff or extra designs, the reader actually feels more connected and friendly towards the writing. Not only that, buy companies and sites can use this typeface in order to appear innovative and approachable. Fonts in this family include Arial, Modelica, and Open Sans. Companies such as Nike, Apple, and Spotify use this typeface to appear more innovative to their customers. 


Script: Happiness

Unlike the other typefaces with basic, modern designs, script uses calligraphy fonts making it seem more luxurious and high-class. Pieces of writing that use this font will usually come off as more formal and fancier. Script can be described as fancy, happy, elegant, creative, and of course, whimsical. They appear as retro which allows them to bring back memories to the reader as well as appearing more creative because of the design. Many Valentine's cards and sites use it as it could be associated with romance or even just fun. Kids also tend to like this font as it looks more artistic and fun. Companies such as Coca Cola and Disney use this typeface. Two of the most known fonts in this family are Seldom and Suniska. 


Display: Uniqueness

Have you ever seen a font that you can't exactly sort into a typeface? Well then, it's most likely a display font. Display fonts aren't classified in a particular way as they can be displayed in a design or just heavily styled. This allows them to be the perfect option to use for logos or promotions that aren't intended for long reading. Companies that use these fonts usually aim for difference and uniqueness as it can be a fun way to display ideas, Examples include Oreo, Subway, and Legos since these brands are informal and mostly for the younger audience. Color is also a huge part of these fonts as it incorporates the design elements. Fonts used can vary from Addison to Cheese Sauce. 





Fashion Fonts

In fashion blogs and magazines, it's essential to use fonts that are able to attract the right audience. The most used typefaces for fashion magazines are Serif and Sans Serif. This is because both of these families convey a feeling of trustworthiness to their audience making it easy to connect to the work being shown. Not only that, but these two are also very modern, yet very simple making them have the most high-class, fancy appearance for those brands' consumers.

Below, you can see some of the most known luxury brands and their logos which all use the Serif or Sans Serif families. In addition, Vouge, a well-known fashion magazine, almost always uses these fonts for mastheads and coverlines as shown in the two examples. While it might seem like a simple aesthetic-only touch, fonts are extremely necessary to attract the right audience and convey the right emotions to them. Ultimately, font psychology is one of the most important elements in making or writing anything for conveying meaning to the audience.  


Conclusion:

As you can see, font psychology is an essential part of fashion magazines and their covers. In order to produce the best and most unique visual design, artists and designers will have to have a clear understanding of fonts and how they can influence the human brain and convey certain emotions and symbols. Ultimately, having a basic understanding will allow you to make the most elegant and unique design while incorporating all the other elements. 

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