Visual Communication Through Fonts

Hundreds, maybe even thousands of times per day, our eyes see letters and read words. Everywhere you look there are merchandise marketing slogans, advertisements, newspapers, magazines, brochures, storefronts, brands, logos, books, articles and blog entries. While the literate population might notice the hundreds of thousands of words they read every day, the style of the printed words are seldom noticed above a subconscious level. In fact, a choice of font can act as an extremely effective tool for visual communication. If you stop to consider the style and personality that exists in the font of the words you are reading, you might be able to understand those words on an entirely deeper level.

One example of this is the high recognizable Times Roman font. This is the default font on most personal computer's word processors, and it is the standard font for many colleges, universities and educational institutions. It originated in the Times newspaper in the early 1930's and was designed to be simple, legible and spatially efficient. As a result, when you read a document in Times Roman, it often has an academic or journalistic connotation. In other words, it is designed to state facts simply, and without flourish. It is an outspoken font, in that it is trying to let the text speak for itself.

Another widely recognizable font is called Courier. This font was creatively commissioned by the IBM software company in the 1950's, and it is specifically designed to resemble the lettering from an early typewriter. Because of it's association with the typewriter, the Courier font often emphasizes the act of writing itself, before considering what the writing even says. Since it's creation, it has become the industry standard font for all screenplays, and is often used for other manuscript-type documents as well.

A little bit later on, in 1982, typeface designers working for the company, Monotype Typography designed the Arial font. The Arial font is thought to have been a shift toward more humanist characteristics in typefaces, and it contains a softer and fuller treatment of curves than older, more traditional fonts. The effect is that the font appears less mechanical and more individualized. It looks more like a human's soft, curved handwriting than like a robotic, computerized font. The Arial font is widely distributed through Mac Os and Microsoft Windows, and has become one of the most versatile fonts in history. It is used for academic, scientific, advertising, creative and journalistic means.


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