reading post #2

People don’t often realize how fonts guide their readings unless they work in the printing, design, or publishing industries, where they need to think and talk with fonts. But ironically fonts are incredibly influential and almost invisible at the same time. Readers are psychologically manipulated by fonts and unconsciously categorized the information they read by fonts. For example, newspapers or textbooks will choose classical fonts like Time New Roman or Calibri for their text. Its elegant serifs and proportions exuded authority. Comparatively, people rarely read the text which is set in Comic Sans, with its childish softness and bulbous loops.
Decades after the original Macintosh fonts have been created, typeface strengthened its territory very fast through the internet. Computer users almost deal with spelling fonts every day. They choose fonts to write emails, type papers, make powerpoints, almost everything they do when they need to type a letter. New typeface has been created everyday, how to choose appropriate fonts to achieve your purpose become critical. For example, I like small fonts and old style text like Time New Rome, Arial or Calibri. Some of websites (can be business or artistic) choose to use very big and overwhelming fonts (bold/handwriting style/harsh edges/wide). These kind of typefaces make me feel heavy and distractive from the content, and I certainly won’t stay long on those pages unless if I was asked to do so. For the aspect of design, sometimes text can be powerful weapon for the artists. Many artists choose to write text on their work especially for the artists work with new media (graphic design or photography). Text will clarify your theme. Even a short text can dramatically change your work’s looking. Therefore, fonts are important.