The Many [mis]Uses of Fonts

I am neither a typographer nor an expert in graphic design. Yet, there’s a lot to be said for fonts and their effects. Or rather, the proper (or not entirely appropriate) application of them. What is in the appearance of a letter? In its placement?

Different typefaces, when used in contexts appropriate to them, are as good as invisible in the everyday world. Language, so integral to human interaction, occurs in written forms perhaps more often than one would notice. Books, tags and labels, signs, advertisements of every kind, informative, entertaining, philosophical- the written word is ubiquitous. How it is physically manifested, however, is something that the average reader does not tend to notice unless something goes horridly awry. And it does, it does.

Everyone has seen this, or done this themselves, at least once, I am certain:  It is an email, perhaps, or a hand-coded website, or perhaps a homegrown flyer or pamphlet or newsletter. It has clearly been produced in Microsoft Word because there is WordArt on it. Eye-squinting, brow-contorting, mottled-brown (or perhaps wavy blue, rainbow, or shiny chrome), 3-D (or the kind with drop shadows) WordArt that reads “OUR VISIUN 4 THE FUTRUE” like a whack in the brain with a crowbar. There may be neither misspelling nor poor grammar in actuality, but its appearance does not precisely emanate the glow of professionalism, either.

Without the aid of WordArt, the overenthusiastic font-decorator may turn to the handy-dandy format bar for some nice garnishing. In the same page, there may be eight different fonts, six different font sizes, ten different colors and probably excessive and extraneous punctuation or some glitter and unicorns thrown in there for good measure.

Please, please, no.

Understandably,  simplicity is not always the solution. Less is not always more. A single classy, clean black typeface will not necessarily do the trick. 12pt. Times New Roman in black will leave the correct impression only in certain cases.  But there is often something to be said for restraint. A font that is overly spiky, flourish-y, blocky, or otherwise irregular can certainly be fun to use sometimes, but reading a block of text written in one is most assuredly not fun. Putting up a poster telling everyone about the party would not be very effective if, say, it looked like this:

Also, this is a fantastic guide to fonts.

But in all honesty, now, what is it that makes some fonts more effective than others? Is it the curve and thickness and slant of their lines, the way their letters sit next to or apart from one another? The exact details are difficult to pin down. But one can definitively declare one type ephemeral, another heavy and authoritative. One can have age and dignity; another, cleanly cut, modern and progressive.

About a year ago, I was tasked with the analysis of a graphic novel. I do not entirely recall what the prompt was, or what we were to glean from it, precisely, but I chose to do a study of different fonts. In a graphic novel or comic, a story is told not only through words and illustrations, but a blend of the two- the appearances of said words. Language becomes not only verbal, or even visual, but both. Darkness and foreboding? Use dark heavy slashes and angular letters. Uncertainty? Weak, widely spaced letters, uniformly shaped but perhaps a bit shaky. Something archaic can be conveyed with an Old-English- style type, evocative of bygone flourishes and grandness, of academia and the intellectual. Flat, angular, typewriter-generated font can suggest a detached coldness.

The connotations and effects associated with different fonts provide a fascinating study. We will explore this further, perhaps, another time. But until then–

-TChen