Consider for a moment, the written communications you create on a weekly basis. Emails, reports, meeting minutes, presentations, web pages, blogs, Facebook/LinkedIn/Twitter… I’ll bet that they number in the hundreds, if not thousands.

The ability to get your messages across in writing is undoubtedly a critical skill requirement in the modern workplace. During your career, you’ve probably attended at least one Business Writing Skills training course funded by your organisation. On this course, you will have learned the importance of using: the right language, grammar, punctuation and spelling; the right structure to make sure your communication is correctly understood.

You may also have learned to set clear objectives for your messages and to think about how your reader might respond. But have you ever considered the importance of the typeface that you’re using?

But first, what do I mean by ‘TYPEFACE’? The official definition is:

• The specific letterform design of an alphabet

You might be wondering what the difference is between a ‘typeface’ and a ‘font’. Before I go any further, I’ll let the BBC explain: “A font is a collection of all the characters of a typeface, including capital letters and lowercase letters, numerals and punctuation marks. For letterpress printing, using hot metal, a font was produced for every size and style of typeface, but today fonts are delivered as a digital software file that caters for all sizes of a typeface. That is why the words font and typeface are often interchanged.” For the purposes of this article, I think I‘ll stick with ‘font’.

Font Fact
CVs with inappropriate or weird fonts are rejected within 30 seconds.

Common sense dictates that in business communications, it makes sense to choose a font that is fairly plain and sufficiently large to be legible (take note all those companies whose T&Cs are printed in Times New Roman 6pt!). But you may not have realised that your choice will create a strong emotional response in your reader, before they’ve even read the words. According to one leading graphic designer, Neville Brody, ‘It’s an invisible level of communication. It’s to do with context, association and memory’. Consultant psychologist Dr Aric Sigman has studied this field and concluded that fonts constitute a’ second dialogue’. So, it’s safe to say that the font you use is sending subliminal messages of which you – and your reader(s) – are not consciously aware.

According to Ian Peacock, writing in The Times back in 2005 “There was only one typeface when Gutenberg developed the first printing press in the 15th century, simulating the ornate ecclesiastical hand of the scriptorium. The subliminal message of the original Gothic or Black Letter fonts was clear: the words were God and the words were with God.” In recent years, there has been a proliferation of new font designs, primarily motivated, according to one writer, by the commercial need to manipulate clients.

Some fonts can provoke strong reactions. From the font-loving filmmaker who in 2007 created a documentary dedicated to Helvetica (click here to view Part One) which has a cult status amongst its many fans, to the blogger who so hated the subtitle font used by James Cameron in the film Avatar that they “threw up a little” when they realised they “would have to read that ugly font throughout the film”. Ewww!

Fonts certainly seem to polarise people. Here are just some of the views I’ve unearthed to some of the most popular:

Typeface	Positives	Negatives
Times New Roman	Comfortable on the eye Classic Credible	Ugly
Helvetica	Clean	Cheap Dated
Arial	Concise Easy to read Modern	Ubiquitous (courtesy of Microsoft)
Trebuchet	Best for dyslexics	Predictable
Comic Sans	Creative Informal	Digital equivalent of bindweed

So how on earth do you choose the best font from the 200,000+ that are now on offer? It’s entirely possible that your organisation operates strict guidelines for the use of fonts in corporate communications, in which case make sure you use them – someone, somewhere spent a significant amount of time and money doing the research on the best fonts for your brand. But if you are ‘empowered’ even a little to make your own typographic choices, then I hope you’ll find the following helpful.

All fonts fall into two categories: Serif and Sans Serif. The word “serif” derives from the Dutch “schreef” which mean “dash”, so in a serif typeface the letters have extra curls and bobbles, reminiscent of hand-writing. Sans Serif, created in 1816, literally means “without serif”, the letter forms having clean lines without any protruding bits, which not only appeals to our modernist sensitivities, but also makes it easier to read. Accepted wisdom seems to be that Serif fonts are best for printed text, Sans Serif for viewing on screen.

Three basic best practice rules when selecting a font for your personal business communications are:

1. Choose a font ‘family’, with pre-set point sizes for body text, titles and headings
2. Set body text in 12 point and headlines in 14 point
3. Don’t use more than 2 different fonts in one communication

And you’ll be wise to avoid:

1. Overly round fonts, they can make your text look messy
2. Condensed fonts, your text will look squished
3. Spidery fonts, as they can be difficult to read

But, ultimately, the best judge of whether you’ve chosen the right font for your communication is probably you. Just read through your written document then ask yourself: does it look good? Do I like it? The last thing you want is to spend 2 hours writing it, then 8 agonising over the design!

Still having difficulty choosing your favourite fonts? This site from Pentagram, a top-notch design studio, purports to help you figure out the font “type” most suited to your personality: What type are you? Myers-Briggs it most certainly isn’t, but you’ll definitely gain a new perspective on your personal preferences.

It seems appropriate to finish this article with a little font joke from The Times.

A Comic Sans font walks into a pub.
And the barman says: “Sorry. We don’t serve your type in here.”

Well, I thought it was funny!

PS. In case you were wondering, the offending font in Avatar was Papyrus.

Key References:

BBC – Do Typefaces Really Matter?
MS Studio – The Scourge of Arial
Smashing Magazine – Typographic Designs & Best Practices
Times Online – Are You Feeling the Font?