Perception of Fonts: Perceived Personality Traits and Appropriate Uses

This chapter discusses the personality traits of onscreen typefaces and the perceived appropriateness of typefaces for a variety of onscreen document types including website ads, written assignments, email, résumés, spreadsheets, and web pages. Results from two studies will be discussed. In Study 1 participants rated the perception of 40 typefaces' personalities using 15 semantic differential scales. The results of a factor analysis revealed three correlated factors named Potency, Evaluative, and Activity based on Osgood, Suci and Tannenbaum [1957] that explain the perception of onscreen typeface personalities. Potency describes the ruggedness and masculinity of a typeface, Evaluative describes the perceived beauty and value of a typeface, and Activity describes the excitement, loudness, and speed of a typeface. Comparison of semantic differential charts for serif, san serif, display, and script typefaces revealed the serif and san serif typefaces to be neutral across factors; the bolder, blockier display typefaces were perceived as more Potent, more Evaluative; and the script typefaces were perceived as less Potent, more Evaluative, and less active. In Study 2, typeface appropriateness was evaluated for a variety of document types. General findings imply that for documents such as website ads, the most appropriate typefaces are those that have personalities congruent with the featured product's personality. For all other onscreen documents the most appropriate typefaces were those that were higher on Potency and Evaluative than Activity, and higher in perceived legibility.