Why fonts can be deceiving,
‘We are all type consumers,’ writes graphic designer Sarah Hyndman in Why Fonts Matter, her exploration of how different typefaces evoke our emotions and affect our decisions. A font can help keep us safe, change the taste of our food or influence how we
You have an intuitive sense of when type fits the situation and when it doesn’t. When the type is appropriate to the content it enhances the reading experience, which becomes seemingly effortless as a result. If you watch a film with well-cast actors you are able to sit back, suspend disbelief and enjoy it. If they are poorly cast then the film will not ring true and this can spoil even a great story. This does not mean that the actors go unseen; it means that they complement the scenario. In the same way, well-designed type is not invisible; it works in harmony with the content. Processing fluency When you see something written in an unfamiliar typeface, your reading experience is interrupted because you need to pay attention to deciphering the letters.
This means that you read more slowly and you are likely to become aware of the reading process. By contrast, when you read a familiar type style your eyes are able to “skim ef- fortlessly across the text” and, according to Dr. David Lewis [in The Brain Sell: When Science Meets Shopping], this earns your trust. He calls this “processing fluency” as it describes the ease with which you recognize and comprehend what the words say.
He goes on to explain that the more easily a customer can process and understand a sales message, the more likely they are to purchase an item. Processing fluency applies not only to the readability of the typeface itself, but also to the design, layout and language. If a highly readable typeface is poorly typeset and difficult to read it will still slow the reader down.
However, this is not proposing that “one font fits all,” as different typefaces will suit different scenarios. The ease with which you read a typeface is a combination of it being both familiar and fitting the context. Quiz: speed test Set a timer or stopwatch for 30 seconds. Start the timer and circle all the words in the image at left where the font does not match the word. That is, where the meaning of the word seems opposite to the style of the typeface (for example, if the word “fast” is in a typeface that looks heavy and slow).
How many did you find? The answers are on page IN6.
This speed test quiz is inspired by a study called “Typographic influences on reading,” by Clive Lewis and Peter Walker [in the British Journal of Psychology], in which participants were shown a selection of words like “elephant” and “fast” typeset either in chunky Cooper Black, or the light and speedy looking Palatino italic. These are the two typefaces used in the Speed Test quiz.
The meanings of some words mirrored the shapes of the typefaces and, as in the quiz, some appeared to be the opposite. Participants were given specific words to look out for and asked to press a button as soon as they saw them.
It was found that they were able to identify the words much faster when the words matched the fonts, and that reaction times were considerably slower when they did not match. Lewis and Walker were able to demonstrate that we read much faster when typefaces match the content.