What is Font Psychology?
What is font psychology?
Have you ever wondered what tricks of the trade designers and brands use to lure your attention? Let me introduce you to one of the fundamental ones that have been around since the year 100, fonts.
Why are fonts important?
Fonts play an incredibly important role in any design process, one of their most important assets is the psychology behind them. So what is font psychology?
To put it simply, font psychology is a study of how different fonts impact the user; specifically their thoughts, behaviours, and feelings. If you’re thinking “it’s just a font”, have you ever seen Comic Sans on any Gucci product or advertisement? Yeah me neither, why? Because it’s not the type of font that looks luxurious nor feels elegant or stylish (sorry Vincent).
There is a wide variety of thoughts and feelings a font can represent but the real trick is knowing which one represents what you want it to, among some of them they can appear as; respectable, clean, elegant, strong, creative, traditional, and even friendly. It all depends on the type of feeling the brand is trying to relay to its consumers. A great visual example of how certain types of fonts can make you feel is represented in the infographic below.
How to choose the right font?
Choosing the right font and deciding on the type of message you’re trying to send is vital to the success of attracting the right demographic and sending the intended message. After all, you wouldn’t want to accidentally make your customer angry when they should be feeling relaxed.
Let’s take a look at an example of the type of mood a simple font change can set. On the left; is a romantic note left by your other half before they went to the shop for some eggs. On the right; a not-so-romantic note was left by what I can only imagine being a serial killer. That… is the power of font psychology.
To summarise, fonts can become one of your greatest weapons therefore it’s important to understand the fundamentals and effects that they can have on consumers. So what did we learn? That font psychology can affect thoughts, feelings, and behaviours. Gucci will probably never use comic sans (unless ironically). And that a romantic note can take a dark turn very quickly…
Sources below:
https://www.crazyegg.com/blog/psychology-of-fonts-infographic/