Just My Type: A game about fonts and feelings
Overview
Nothing about the typed word is neutral; by definition, the words we write are given a voice by the typefaces they are set in. Some voices are loud, while others are soft. Some are happy, and some are somber. In Just My Type, the game is all about using this intuition to use the most appropriate fonts in a given situation.
From informal interviews with my friends, I found that many don’t believe in their aesthetic intuition to create pleasing graphics. As my friend Maria joked:
Even though I don’t use Comic Sans per se, I feel like the fonts I choose have the same effect on the work I do.
Therefore, the learning objective for this game is to teach non-designers the emotional connotation related to fonts and typefaces. It’s designed to trigger these questions in non-designers when confronted with a situation: When do I use this font versus that one? What mood or tone does this typeface convey?
While design is so much more than the typefaces you use, I narrowed the scope of the game to focus specifically on one thing that everyone at Stanford interacts with on a daily basis. I hoped that with a game centered around matching typefaces people see every day with ridiculous prompts, I could create a low-stakes space for people to reason out justifications for fonts in the same way designers reason out their own use of fonts. I specifically highlighted two modes of fun in the gameplay — Narrative and Expression — in order to give heighten the fun and exploration of the game through their own experiences.
In designing this game, my biggest concern was: would this game even be fun? I admit, I’m a nerd when it comes to typefaces, and I get excited when I go through my mental library of them and find one that I think works perfectly for whatever I’m designing… but that’s definitely outside the norm. I hoped that in the process of creating and testing this game, I’d be able to deepen my understanding of fonts as much as I do other player’s.
Rules
Just My Type is a party game designed for 4+ players, though for maximum effect a group of 4–6 people is recommended.
Set up for the game requires a pile of white Type cards and a pile black Product cards placed face down in the center of the table/playing space. If convenient for reaching purposes, the pile of Type cards may be split up into smaller piles.
To start the game, each player draws 5 Type cards. The person wearing the most fonts on their apparel goes first — in the event of a tie, the person with the darkest colored top goes first. This person begins as the Client and plays a Product card by drawing the topmost card from the deck. The Client says aloud “What font would you use to sell…” followed by the prompt written on the Product card.
When ready, each player can pitch their chosen font directly to the Client and explain why they think the font matches their Product. Players can use any reasoning they’d like for why a font matches the prompt, from the font type or form (“Spectral is perfect because it’s a serif, and serifs are old!”), to its name or feeling (“Something about Comfortaa is just so… comforting.”), or anything in between. The Client can end any pitch that goes longer than thirty seconds.
After all pitches have been made, the Client decides which typeface to use and gives the player who proposed that font the round’s Product card as the prize. Players discard all used Type cards and take a new Type card from the pile.
The player to the left of the Client becomes the next round’s Client; play repeats until someone has received 5 Product cards.
Assessment
Just My Type had an earlier title — Fonts Have Feelings! — which I think succinctly guided the assessment of the game. I observed the playtests with two things in mind: were people learning to link emotional connotations to typefaces? And was it fun?
I informally screened people for their familiarity with typefaces and graphic design in general (purposefully reaching out to friends who weren’t super knowledgeable about it already) and interviewed them about their attitudes toward choosing fonts for typed out works and graphics. What did they like about certain graphics that relied on fonts versus what did they dislike? What scares them about choosing fonts for any given assignment? What excites them about it? (Do they get excited, or is that just a me thing?)
During the game, I’d observe their words and body language and note interesting moments during gameplay. This portion was especially intriguing, as it was the make or break part for me; if people were apathetic or tense, I knew I’d failed the learning objective.
After the session, I followed up with them in a group asking them to share their thoughts on the game, rate the game from 1–10 on how likely they’d recommend it to their friends, and asked for suggestions on how to make the gameplay better.
History
I only had the opportunity to do two playtests, but between the two, I learned quite a bit.
Playtest 1: Blind judgment
This version of the game played by straight Cards Against Humanity rules, so blind judgment with no pitches. Three people playtested this version:
- Maria, 21, female, English major + Chicanx/Latinx Studies minor
- Wint, 21, female, Anthropology major
- Anchit, 21, male, Electrical Engineering major
This playtest was rough; we cut off gameplay early at around 20 minutes as it was clear the game wasn’t fun in its current state. In retrospect, the blind judgment aspect killed the momentum set up by the funny prompts, which were the highlight of this version of the game.
In post-interviewing, the game averaged a 5.6 in ratings, which I suspect was inflated to be nice to me. Playtesters were really intrigued about the topic and idea for the game — Wint mentioned that “it sounds like it would be a really useful lesson!” — but as it stands right now, everything felt subjective because the accurate assessment of a font’s mood was made by the judge rather than the player themselves. Anchit specifically wished that there was a way he could explain why he thought a font made sense with a prompt.
Perhaps the most telling thing was the silence that dominated portions of gameplay, namely the selection of the type. When the prompt was read aloud, players would laugh a little, but then the noise would die down and people would start agonizing over their decisions; then, when the judge revealed the fonts, there wasn’t really much “drama” in the decision, as Anchit put it.
I learned from this playtest that I needed to inject more personal input and allow players to provide justification over their choices. Players seemed like they were in the right headspace to approach the game, but the gameplay failed them; the blind bag rules of CAH only work because the cards people provide are the punchline to the joke set up by their prompts.
Playtest 2: Pitch + judgment
For this version, I recalled the class in which our table playtested Snake Oil, another judged prompt game. We all had a lot of fun in the table specifically because we had to get creative with the inventions we made and then justify them through a short pitch. For this version of the game, I stole Snake Oil’s framework for making pitches and used the same cards as before to see if this change would make learning type more apparent in gameplay.
Five people playtested this version:
- Lee’Shae, 18, female, undeclared
- Cainan, 21, male, Mechanical Engineering coterm+ Music major
- Elise, 21, female, English major + Art & Art History major
- Kaitlyn, 20, female, Theater & Performance Studies major
- Eve, 21, female, Theater & Performance Studies major
Maybe it’s just theater people being theater people, but this version of the game was miles and ahead better than the last round. Some of my favorite soundbites connected to their typefaces include:
On Coming Soon for a strip mall on the Moon: “We need something that the aliens can read, and this font looks like a theremin, so…”
On Avenir for a bookstore for vegans: “So this font is chic, but not too chic, y’know? It’s like quinoa.”
On Cinzel for a Himalayan salt lamp emporium: “You need a font that’s mystic and otherworldly, like a healing crystal.”
In short, this playtest was everything that the first playtest wasn’t. People were intuitively connecting the prompts judges had to the typefaces they had on hand, which was really exciting. Because the prompts were ridiculous, the justifications were as well (but also no less grounded in the reality of the font). It reminded me of a suggestion that Gweb made during a class session to see if I could somehow give the fonts a voice and personify them into a conversation. The personality and voice of the fonts shone through the ways players were describing them, as shown in the bits above.
And with a sigh of relief, non-designers were having fun! Players were laughing at the prompts, and then laughing again at the ways other players tried to justify their decisions. A recurring joke came up when someone drew Coming Soon twice and used it twice for both its name and form. And the game lasted a good 30–40 minutes before we called it quits given that it was midnight and we wanted to sleep.
The average recommending rate for this game was an 8.6, which was a victory in itself due to the ability for players to express themselves. In the post-interview, players felt like the game made them think a little more critically about the typefaces they chose and the elements of an individual typeface being a part of its personality.
Concluding Thoughts + Future Directions
Not much has changed in the game since the last playtest mechanics-wise; I focused most of my energy on the information design on the cards themselves and added “stats” for the cards, as one playtester suggested to have handy in case they didn’t know what type it was. I’m interested if the presence of such information affects the pitch portions drastically. Update: having done the final playtest with other members of the class, the information is a nice crutch, but I’m now worried that players are leaning too much into the names of the fonts to justify their choices rather than the shape or form. People are laughing and having fun no doubt (exciting moments ranged from two people proposing the same font to someone pen-dropping after they knew their pitch was perfect), but now I’m worried that the learning objectives are getting lost in the mix.
A really interesting path Christina suggested was the idea that fonts don’t exist in a vacuum, and in fact work together with things like color, formatting, and other elements such that they coexist harmoniously. I did tinker around with this for a bit (under the running title Brand Me!), but I ultimately decided that it was far out of the scope of my abilities given the time I had. It’s definitely a path I’d love to explore in a future project, however!
In the end, going through the design process for this game alone and with the added time pressure of being gone for an extended period was really hard, more than I thought it would be going into it; as a result, I feel I could’ve done so much more than I was able to demonstrate in this project. I feel like one more playtest with special attention to more details (like the balancing of different types of font cards, or the presence or lack thereof of certain type details) would help smooth over any rough features it may have. Nevertheless, I think that the game achieved its learning objectives (at least somewhat) and has started to get my friends thinking about typefaces the way I do, which is a win for me.
You can print and play Just My Type at home! Full instructions and materials can be found here.
