The fonts you include in your designs can dramatically shape how they impact your audience and what emotions they evoke. Typography also drives a handful of other cognitive processes that often get overlooked

Which typefaces are easy to read, and which aid memory retention? How does one choose a font that aligns with the brand psychologically? Which of them boasts a personality, and what kind? These are just a few questions research seems to have answered for us. Expect a highly condensed but informative summary of the current findings, so you’ll know when to apply specific typefaces for your intended outcomes.

Basic but important trade-offs

Starting with a significant one: fonts that are more difficult to read promote memory retention. The harder our brain has to work, the better we can remember the content as it adapts (and rises) to the challenge. Such fonts also help us be less distracted and hold onto our focus in noisy environments.

Meanwhile, easy-to-read fonts are processed faster but encoded in less depth, adding to a shallower, more fleeting recollection. Ultimately illegible font types will, of course, push this takeaway way past its limits as people won’t be able to, you know, read a thing.

The battle of Serif vs. Sans-Serif

Let’s put this into a typeface context and pitch one against another, so you can decide which will suit your design better.

1) Serifs decrease reading speed, so if you want your audience to spend more time on your content, you can use this to your advantage by picking, for example, Times New Roman, Garamond, Georgia, Didot, or whatever else takes your fancy from the Serif family.

2) We can also shift the perspective here. For larger chunks of text, you may want to choose Sans-serif fonts for a speedier read — which also improves accessibility. The 10 percent of the population believed to have dyslexia will likely thank you for going sans to help with reading performance. According to a research review, those with low vision also seem to prefer sans-serifs.

3) Serif typefaces significantly increase memory recall. As highlighted before, because they take longer to read and decipher, they can lead to more profound, more solidified knowledge.

Typefaces and their (many) associated personality traits.

In the same way that colors evoke feelings, moods, and personality traits can also be assigned to fonts. To this end, the Software Usability Research Laboratory (SURL) at Wichita State University tried to understand how people perceive typefaces. They asked participants to complete a questionnaire detailing which characteristics describe and resonate with different fonts in their opinion.

1) Serif typefaces scored the highest on traits such as “stable, practical, mature, and formal.” Still, in another study, they were considered more distinct, charming, aesthetic, rich, and emotional than sans-serif fonts.

On an amusing note, satirical texts printed in Times New Roman are perceived as funnier and angrier than those written in (the Sans-serif) Arial, possibly because the former is seen as professional and formal. However, print publications generally use serif fonts due to perceived (more enjoyable) readability and refined aesthetics.

Still, we are not yet done assigning characteristics, as this research article also summarised how certain typefaces within the Serif family are regarded.

Typeface persona examples:

• Times New Roman is also seen as “bookish” and traditional.
• Garamond is described as graceful, refined, distinctly feminine, and confident.
• Century Schoolbook is considered “serious yet friendly.”
• Caslon is attractive but not pretentious — it’s “quietly dignified.”
• Finally, Goudy is jolly and laid-back.
• Meanwhile, the Bodoni family is “very urban, dramatic, and sophisticated.”

2) Sans-serifs did not score extraordinarily high or low on any of the personality traits listed, making them both natural and all-purpose. They can also be fresh, high-quality, intelligent, readable, minimal, and crisp.

Most companies use Sans-serif typefaces (such as Helvetica, Gill Sans, and Futura) on their packaging, advertising, and websites due to their clarity and legibility in both small and large font sizes. They are also more prevalent in the digital aether as they tend to render more crisply on various screen sizes.

Typeface persona examples:

• Futura is “no-nonsense,” cool, and restrained.
• AvantGarde is modern yet not too formal.

3) Script fonts were seen as youthful, happy, creative, rebellious, feminine, casual, and cuddly in this study. Meanwhile, in a 1982 research paper, they were explicitly described as being more elegant.

4) Modern Display fonts tend to be associated with traits such as masculinity, assertion, rudeness, sadness, and coarseness.

5) Monospaced contestants were most described as dull, plain, unimaginative, and conforming.

Based on a 2018 study, handwritten fonts increase consumers’ attachment to products as they create a sense of human presence. Those who experience loneliness might also be more prone to building emotional connections with products since they have a higher tendency to “humanize” items. This applies stronger to cases where the consumer doesn’t already feel a sense of attachment to the brand.

Finally, as a general rule, “friendly” typefaces tend to be simple and imperfect, displaying rounded features (such as everyone’s favorite, Comic Sans). Those showing balance and moderation in their anatomy (think weight, proportion, and thick-to-thin transitions) are seen as “professional.”

Carrying and influencing meaning

Since typefaces alone are already associated with certain feelings and messages, it is wise to choose traits that resemble your context. Fonts can not only convey but also influence the meaning of objects and, thus, how users perceive them.

Another critical point is that the font’s meaning should not clash with the brand’s identity. If there is no visual consistency across the two, it makes the brand harder to remember, so picking one that fits the company’s tone and purpose is a long-term investment. Products are often chosen when the brand name appears in an “appropriate” typeface.