work-back Fonts speak louder than words

Clare Abbott • 2 min read

This week’s update comes to you from our creative department who, it’s fair to say, have ‘a little bit of a thing’ for typography.

Typography is the art of arranging type to make written language legible, readable, and appealing when displayed. The sense and mood of an isolated word or blocks of text can be effectively visually expressed through typography, which incorporates everything from font and typeface choice (including point size, leading, tracking and kerning), to colour, layout and design integration.

At the centre of typography are the fonts. The right font can make or break the overall effectiveness of any communication message and directly impacts on audience perception, understanding, interest and level of engagement.

Picking a font is a little like getting dressed in the morning. Do you feel business like? Avant guard? Or casual? Similarly, you can choose between fonts that are expressive and stylish, versus those that are practical and serious — either way the font should reflect the content. Our job is to try to find the right balance for the occasion and, just as we don’t want to see you in purple spandex shorts, we also don’t want to see those jeans that seem to go with everything come out of the closet yet again!

Typography is the driving force in visual communication — in short, it matters. To deliver your message successfully you need to choose fonts that bridge the gap between your graphics, your text and your objective. If all that seems a bit daunting, just give the OSP creative department a call.