In a guest author post for the UpCity blog, LGK’s Leisa Chester Weir shared her font and typography wisdom, including a great infographic, to make font selection a little less painful for the small business marketer. Since we’re fascinated by fonts and appreciate the role they play in engagement, here are ten reasons to revere them.
No. 1: From the Father of Advertising, David Ogilvy
…do you think an advertisement can sell if nobody can read it? You can’t save souls in an empty church.
Source: Ogilvy on Advertising
Ogilvy (b. 6/23/11, d.7/21/99), was an ad man, founder of Ogilvy & Mather, creator of some of the most iconic advertising and marketing campaigns. One slogan says it all: Don’t Leave Home Without Them!
Ogilvy on Advertising, an advertising and marketing bible, is available at most libraries and on Amazon.
No. 2: From our friends at Canva
Imagine hauling around heavy boxes of metal type — a different set for every typeface — and having to assemble your text letter by letter in order to design a document.
That seems a world away from our point-and-click, instant world of digital design. But it really wasn’t too many years ago that a font would have been known as a specific set of movable metal type — rather than a funny name in software program’s drop-down menu.
Read this entire article at Canva.com.
Nos. 3-4: From The Font Series: A Font Guide with Tips, Facts, and the Origins by Lexie Lu
The word font itself comes from the Middle French word “fonte” and means something melted, which refers back to a time when metal workers cast metal type at foundries. When printing presses came into being, a font referred to a complete set of type, including both upper and lower case letters. Today, we have digital typefaces, and the word encompasses more than just a single metal plate.
Many people use the terms “font” and “typeface” interchangeably. However, typography is more of an artistic skill where you design letters to have a certain impact and leave an impression on the reader. Typography involves the hierarchy of a design and can include more than one type of font. Each font has a very specific personality and details that no other font matches exactly.
Read more of this article at designroast.org.
No. 5: From researchers at RMIT University in Melbourne via Inc.com
Do you sometimes have a hard time remembering something you’ve read even a day or two after you’ve read it? Or worse, do you find yourself reading the same article twice, because you didn’t remember that you’d read it before? Scientists at RMIT University believe their new font may fix that problem, enabling you to remember what you read when it counts, for instance when you’re trying to absorb important facts right before a negotiation or a meeting with a customer.
Sans Forgetica is decidedly odd looking. It slants backward and there are gaps in all of the letters. How does this aid retention? Because it creates a “simple puzzle,” for readers, according to Stephen Banham, a typography lecturer at RMIT who helped design the font. This simple puzzle engages the brain, making the text more memorable.
Read the entire article at Inc.com.
No. 6: From Paul Felton’s The Ten Commandments of Typography/Type Heresy: Breaking the Ten Commandments of Typography
Thou shalt not apply more than three typefaces in a document.
Felton, a graphic designer, provides a fun and insightful review of typography basics in an 80-page flip format that, according to the publisher, “will appeal to the conformist and the non-conformist in everyone – not just the newcomer to design.”
The book is available for purchase at Amazon.com.
Nos. 7- 10: From Simon Garfield, author of “Just My Type” via Robert Carnes of Medium
Two of the most universal fonts of all time, Helvetica and Univers, were both created in Switzerland in 1957. Helvetica is Latin for ‘Switzerland.’ Helvetica is so ubiquitous that one man tried to spend a day without interacting with the font. It was more difficult than you’d think.
Arial is essentially a copy of Helvetica.
Gotham came to fame because of its use during the Obama presidential campaign.
The Declaration of Independence was printed in Caslon. Ironically, Caslon was a popular British font.
These are just a few of the notes Robert Carnes shared after reading Garfield’s book. To see more, check out his entire post on Medium.
No. 11: From Michael Beschloss
While we’re on the topic of patriotism, presidential historian Michael Beschloss, recently posted a font-inspired tweet:
No. 12: Schitts Creek
This reason is pretty much self-explanatory. Let’s just say, I love gifs and really love a good comedy.
Here’s a bonus. Simon Garfield, New York Times Best-selling author of Just My Type, shares his fascination with fonts in this Beyond the Book podcast. Listen to the interview below.
Are you fascinated by fonts? I invite you to share your obsession in the comments section of this post.
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GB O’Brien
LGK Principal