How Typefaces Influence the Way We Think

Great article and worthy of sharing! Not many people pay attention to this particular topic, but since I started cover design, I've been noticing how fonts react on the eyes and the mood they produce. I became even more sensitive to this when I started designing my own interiors. I have a very short attention span, and some typefaces agitate me and make me not want to read. I kept my own reaction in mind when I selected the fonts for my books, which I sent to my mother to read. One had Myriad Pro and the other Minion Pro. She made a comment on both books and how they were pleasing to look at and easy on the eyes. She said this without me even asking her. It also demonstrated how white space helps with readability.

I never got the crusade against Comic Sans. I like the font, although not for a whole book. It holds my attention, which isn't an easy thing to do!

Comic Sans is perfectly fine in the right place. The main problem is that people use it inappropriately. For instance, one of the admins at my university likes to write her emails in Comic Sans (and often with colours). These are formal emails about serious subjects. It's the wrong font. But if you're writing a children's party invitation, Comic Sans is a good choice.

Thank you for posting that link! I'm going to pass it on to my writing group.

Once upon a terrible time I ran a printing shop. Lots of layout. It made me aware of the differences in fonts and their appeal for different audiences -- it can be the difference in getting the job and getting paid for it and not getting the job.

Baskerville is a favorite of mine; it's my default font and what I've been using writing this WIP. I have an irrational loathing of the whole Times Roman family of typefaces. The only explanation I have is that they're aesthetically unappealing to me, but I can't describe why.

Liralen said:

I have an irrational loathing of the whole Times Roman family of typefaces. The only explanation I have is that they're aesthetically unappealing to me, but I can't describe why.

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Same here. I do like Baskerville.

Long ago when the Mac SE and the Apple Laser Writer started to appear at universities, I was tasked with learning to use HyperCard to create ebooks.

I fell in love with the Mac's fonts/typefaces; they were display only on Mainframes and DOS PCs (by which I meant they were crudely rasterized for the screen and wouldn't print).

I think I managed to use something like 9 faces on a four-page printed newsletter . . .

(I got better, really I did; but even things like The Mac Is Not A Typerwriter didn't exist at that point; people from other universities came to see our Macs and laser printers . . . )