Fonts not only affect the understandability of a message, but also the emotional feeling it evokes…
We’ve all been through a similar situation: you get an email offering to refinance your mortgage, or maybe change your phone provider. The offer seems reliable at first glance, but something is wrong. Do the police seem… strange? So you’re wondering, “Is this a scam?” »
Brands use typography to convey trust, sincerity, and dependability. Even if the logo, photos, graphic design and user interface are impeccable, any doubt or concern creeps in when the typography doesn’t deliver what it promises.
Designers and marketers have known for years that typography influences the way people think, although they can’t explain exactly why. Consumers instinctively sense when a font is inadequate, resulting in unconscious emotional impact that is difficult to measure. Do you want to follow the directions of a highway sign written in Comic Sans? Or take out home contents insurance with a company that uses Papyrus? If the answer is no, why?
We wanted to understand how typography evokes experiences, associations and feelings, and evaluate the effectiveness of different typefaces in unique situations. Can fonts affect our reaction to teasers and slogans? Can they encourage us to be more positive about a company’s logo? Do they really help build trust between brands and consumers?
Identifying the emotional impact of typography through neuroscience.
Marie Boulanger, Brand Designer, Monotype
To answer these questions, Monotype teamed up with applied neuroscience company Neurons to challenge our most common beliefs and find out if different typefaces actually affect our emotional state.
Leveraging decades of experience in data collection and consumer neuroscience, Neurons measured people’s subconscious and conscious responses to three different typefaces: FS Jack, Gilroy, and Cotford. Each has been chosen for its familiar character, without being associated with well-known companies, avoiding any unconscious association with an existing brand.
Typography is a tool that serves as a shell for language, but no font choice can be studied without considering the message itself. To test how typography affects our response to language, we selected words that evoke core and common brand values ​​such as quality, trust, and innovation.
Typography plays a crucial role in conveying values
The study confirmed our hypothesis: typography plays a crucial role in conveying values ​​such as trust, sincerity or reliability, even without color, logo or other visual elements.
Results showed that font choice can elicit positive consumer response by up to 13%, thereby impacting brand awareness and values, representing a significant potential competitive advantage.
Language, typography and culture are closely related, so we wanted to deepen the study by comparing British consumers to their French counterparts. We expected some differences but couldn’t predict how big they will be! There, clear differences were noted and, in general, the typography evoked stronger emotions among consumers in France. For example, the word ‘innovation’ aroused the strongest emotions among the British, while for the French it was the words ‘quality’ and ‘trust’ that drew attention.
The reason why two geographically close populations can respond differently to typography and words can be partially explained by cultural memory. France has a strong design history and because of this, a particular typeface can evoke a very different Proustic response from the French than from the British. With such a rich and dynamic heritage and such a contemporary typographic culture, is it so surprising to find a particular sensibility for typography among the French?
Typography offers brands the opportunity to strengthen their relationship with their audience
We now know that different fonts can evoke different emotions for the same word. They can direct the message and leave a subconscious impression in the brain that changes how we feel about a brand.
We’re only at the beginning of our research project, but we’ve managed to validate some of our beliefs and show that by harnessing the inherent power of typefaces, brands can differentiate themselves. Just as the psychology of color has revolutionized the way marketers communicate and interact with customers on a profound level, applying the same approach to typography will give brands the opportunity to strengthen their relationships with their customers.
author : Mary Boulanger, Brand Designer, Monotype
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About the study
All of the study data was collected by Neurons and Monotype as part of a survey on the emotional impact of typography. The study was conducted online with 550 UK and French participants aged between 18 and 50, resident and gender matched. Learn more about this study.
(c) Fig. DepositPhotos
