The role of type and font in our daily lives
Typography is everywhere. From the physical world to the digital world, we are surrounded by type and font. Picture an outdoor adventure, right when you feel the need to escape from cities. On your way out of town, various road signs or your smartphone’s GPS will direct you to the backcountry. When you park your car and arrive at a trailhead, there will be a post with a message such as “Hiking Trail Begins Here”. Your rain jacket, guide pants, boots and backpack all have logos and tags with writing. Your food packages have descriptions and nutrition labels full of text. Finally, your map will have a title and legend. When you set up camp and gaze at the starry sky, you may think you saw a shooting star, but it is likely a satellite that is transmitting strings of information that will get parsed and displayed as text on a screen far away. After your journey, you will return to society and inevitably pick up a cellphone. When you turn your device on, you guessed it — typography will be everywhere.
In literate cultures around the world, people are heavily influenced by type and font everyday. Whether you are in society or think you are off the grid, people rely on type and font to communicate, learn, and make decisions. Designers and writers carefully select typefaces and fonts to effectively convey messages. The audience, whether they are drivers, shoppers, students, avid readers, or even hikers, all consume these targeted messages. Based on how the content is delivered through typefaces and fonts, viewers are positively and negatively influenced. If what we read speaks to us, we are even driven to make critical decisions.
Unlike oral cultures that see “…language as a form of action (naming, telling, performing) associated with events in the present”, written records are more mystical in that they are an independent entity (Drucker, 2009). Although oral cultures can preserve history through epics and sagas, as well as spread ideas through fables, parables, allegories and other means, humans have reconstructive memory and are prone to amnesia. Knowledge and the delivery of messages will also vary from speaker to speaker, and many of us have experienced outcomes of the telephone game. In contrast, written words are final and they facilitate spreading knowledge about the past, present and predictions about the future without the need of a speaker or presenter. Keeping this in mind, writing enables humans to design messages in a more deliberate and controlled fashion.
If you are a designer or writer, type and font play an indispensable role in your life. Similar to speech, syntax and diction are very important. However, design and writing requires you to represent the nuances of intonations with the aid of typefaces, fonts (the size, weight and style of a typeface), kerning, line heights, colors, grids, motion and the list goes on.
Many companies have established brand guidelines that designers or copywriters must follow, but when you are given total creative control over a project, it can be overwhelming. You have countless options to choose from and too many resources can cause decision fatigue. It is up to the worker to employ sound judgement and incorporate personal taste to brand their work, but this is no easy task. When there is too much going on, a common place to start is to leave your desk and examine your surroundings more carefully. Designers and writers can look at various media such as storefront signs, billboards, posters, online articles, social media posts or books, magazines and other products lined up on shelves. This allows creators to understand their audience and have a better grasp of the environment in which their work will be presented.
In well funded projects, workers may have to conduct user research. This task requires asking target audiences what kind of products, books or magazines stand out and their impressions on typefaces and fonts. Audiences can only make so many decisions, so mastering the art of having a voice in loud, saturated markets is crucial to making a living as a designer or writer. Foul typeface selections like Comic Sans and Papyrus will immediately revoke any credibility, and even proper typefaces employed in the wrong context can bother viewers. Again, typeface and font selection is very important.
Only a select population are designers or writers, but the majority of us have studied in traditional academic settings. It is safe to assume that we all know schools require students and teachers to combine written and spoken language to learn and communicate. However, as we have seen with the Covid-19 pandemic, more schools are switching to virtual classrooms and the opportunity for students to exercise speech in the form of face-to-face discussions and presentations are declining (Diliberti, 2020). When teachers or presenters ask participants if they have any questions, it is pretty common to see people post in chats instead of raising hands because it can be tough speaking up when you have never met anyone in real life. Body language and facial expressions also play a critical role in verbal communication. When we turn our cameras off in virtual settings or our faces are covered in person, verbal communication loses a layer of context. We still have access to video recordings, but in remote environments a great deal of communication happens through Slack, Discord, and other third party or internal messaging tools. The way we communicate is changing.
In the case of my classroom at the Rocky Mountain College of Art and Design, our school made a mid-quarter pivot to virtual meetings during peak lockdown. My college’s online and in-person curriculums have discrepancies, and administrators and professors were forced to make drastic changes. They did not have video recordings prepared because who would have guessed this would all happen so fast. As a result, we switched formats and were given written lectures and weekly readings. Aside from design and artwork, our final deliverables were essays and discussion posts. The latter assignments revolved entirely around type and font.
Although skills such as typeface selection, typographic hierarchy and grid systems are not emphasized in essays or discussion posts, we are able to observe how efficiently textbooks, scholarly articles, publication websites and written lectures are organized. The simple transition from bold title fonts to smaller body text allows us to categorize and group information in a logical manner. In addition, judging by the size of type, students are able to distinguish text under illustrations and pictures in textbooks as supplemental reading. As mentioned above, most students are required to stick to standard typefaces such as Times New Roman, Helvetica or Arial in twelve point font, so there is not a lot of creativity there. However, through reading, students are able to understand typographic hierarchy and how large bodies of text get structured through typefaces and fonts.
Outside of the classroom, consumers are heavily influenced by typefaces and fonts in competitive markets. Just by having a strong message conveyed by the correct typeface and font, brands can make their target audience become loyal buyers. For example, in contrast to brands like Reebok that have decent logos but do not have a tagline that is a call for action, Nike lures buyers in with their all-cap, black-weight Futura slogan “JUST DO IT.” (Bella, 2018). Similarly, Adidas’s “Impossible is Nothing” tagline has the potential to persuade certain consumers that they can achieve greatness with a new pair of ultra boosts and sweat wicking Climaproof sportswear (Waiz, 2019). Even if you are a window shopper, these messages may tempt you to make an impulse purchase because the weight of the letters are very heavy and they amplify powerful statements that speak directly to you. They are loud and distinct, so companies like Nike and Adidas have found different ways to create brand identities that have a fair chance of grabbing a buyer’s attention in competitive settings. Sports companies tend to have strong logos and an arsenal of brand ambassadors, but taglines and slogans paired with excellent typefaces and fonts have an undeniable impact on a consumer’s decision making process. An artist like Ken Kagami can play jokes on Nike by scribbling their logo and slogan, but picture an illegible handwritten typeface that says “Impossible is nothing” (Masahiko, 2021). The majority of consumers would not buy into that message.
Regardless of the role you play in society, type and font are integrated into almost every aspect of our lives. If you are a designer or writer, your whole career revolves around visual communication which is rooted in type and font. If you are student or teacher, more schools are switching to online programs, so verbal communication is hindered and students and teachers have to rely more on writing. We all have to purchase products in a capitalist society, and the type and font on packages, books, magazines and myriad of items play an indispensable role in grabbing our attention. Finally, when we decide to take a break from society to venture into backlands, typography will lead us out of town, signal that we are at the trailhead, and continue to guide us in the wilderness. Typography is everywhere.
Citations:
Bella, T. (2018, September 04). ‘Just Do It’: The surprising and morbid origin story of Nike’s slogan. Retrieved from https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2018/09/04/from-lets-do-it-to-just-do-it-how-nike-adapted-gary-gilmores-last-words-before-execution/?noredirect=on&utm_term=.afa7b6e6f08c
Diliberti, M. K., & Kaufman, J. H. (2020). Will This School Year Be Another Casualty of the Pandemic? Key Findings from the American Educator Panels Fall 2020 COVID-19 Surveys. RAND Corporation. Retrieved June 29, 2022, from https://www.rand.org/pubs/research_reports/RRA168-4.html
Drucker, J., & McVarish, E. (2009). From Prehistory to Early Writing 35,000–500 BCE. In Graphic design history: A critical guide (pp.13). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson.
Masahiko, N. (2021, August 4). My Shopping Cart | ボクの買い物かご｜第３回：Ken Kagami. BONNO. Retrieved June 29, 2022, from https://bonno-web.com/column/14358/
Waiz, S. (2019, May 03). The Adidas Slogan: All You Need To Know. Retrieved from https://advergize.com/advertising/adidas-slogan/
