Verdana, 14 points — can you make sure that all the letters are written in this font?”

This request from an author whose book I was coordinating a few years ago opened my eyes to the psychology of fonts. She wanted to send questionnaires to a bunch of people and, since she was far off in Russia, wanted me to do the sending.

“I find that this is a most readable font and people always reply when I send it in this font,” she explained.

That set me thinking about fonts and the visual persuasion strategy. Just as we respond better to some handwriting, is it true that we respond better to some fonts? Father Google said yes.

And, just as handwriting can tell us a lot about the writer, can the computer fonts tell us anything about the person using them?

Oh yes, said Father Google again, throwing an old study The psychology of Fonts, by Dr Aric Sigman, commissioned by Lexmark Printers, at me.

Fonts and your hangups

The gist of it is that you can figure out people's personality traits through the fonts they use. For instance, the “sensible shoes” type are more likely to use Courier, while those using curvy icons such as Georgia or Shelly have a bit of a “rock chick” personality.

But the most commonly used font today is Times New Roman — and the verdict is that while it is one of the easiest to read, people using it are usually boring since they cannot be bothered to change the default font.

On the other hand, Garamond users are said to be whimsical creatures with a sense of refinement.

From then on I started noticing people's font fetishes. In my previous workplace, if a document came to me in Bookman font I immediately knew that it had passed through the hands of a certain senior editor, whose first task was to change anything given to him into Bookman Old Style.

At home, I see my daughter always changing to cutesy fonts and experimenting with colours when she is emailing someone.

Another research sponsored by Microsoft and conducted by A. Dawn Shaikh, Barbara S. Chaparro and Doug Fox says that serif fonts score high on traits such as “stable, practical, mature and formal”.

The old persuasion trick

Apparently, there is a gender difference too — some fonts, especially those with curves or loops of script — appeal more to the feminine psyche while straight and strong lines find favour with men.

Now, hooked, I trawled the Net some more and fished out ‘Painting with Print' (http://www.ca7.uscourts.gov/Rules/Painting_with_Print.pdf) .

People have made a veritable science of studying fonts and come up with a strong set of recommendations.

Job seekers, for instance, are told to choose Times Roman for their CV if applying to a traditional company and Verdana if sending their resume to a new age firm.

Resignation letters work well with cold Courier!

And coming back to my author's persuasion trick — there is a germ of truth in it after all — the advice is to use fonts that are respectable and appealing when writing to bosses.

And let me confess, dear reader, after reading all this, I used Book Antiqua to make sure you read it — though of course, the paper's designer and printer might have other ideas!

Published on July 3, 2011