What does your font say about you?

By Michael Baxter on 4 June 2014 with tags Upgrade

Bespoke CMS E-commerce Marketing Utopia Hosting Into CMS Upgrade Tech Consulting Tips

To most people, typefaces are pretty insignificant. Yet to their devotees, they are the most important feature of text, giving subliminal messages that can either entice or revolt readers. When Avatar, the biggest grossing movie of all time was released, one section of the audience was immediately outraged. Graphic designers hated it. Why? They didn't like the font that director James Cameron had chosen for the subtitles.

And yet fonts are not just for geeks. Otherwise why would organisations around the world spend so much time and money changing their typeface?

People have become more aware about the impact of fonts because of computers, but the power of a typeface is still largely subliminal. There is no limit to the emotional range a typeface can reflect. Typography is so closely associated with language that you can express irony and get the whole complexity of emotion in there.

Indeed for some, fonts take on almost life and death significance. The Swiss font Helvetica has a cult following celebrated by a 2007 documentary of the same name.

For your website you need to consider the typography as well. Although you would think it is easy, the case is the opposite.  Typography - or font selection - for your website is split between web safe fonts (those that work in every browser) to all the others that can be hit and miss between devices (see Font Squirrel and Google Fonts)

Although some mind blowing fonts are being developed it is worth checking what font your website is using. Who knows - perhaps a simple change could bring a different emotion to those visiting your site and considering doing business with you.

If you are concerned about the message the text on your website is giving about you then please contact us today to review what your website is really saying.