What font is best to use?
In this blog I will explore on a very simple level the advantages of choosing the right font at the right time in your copy.
Fonts never really bothered me that much, not until I started to understand how they can impact how people consume and retain information.
I used to think that using simple easy to ready fonts was such as Arial and similar. It used to irk me when people used fancy swirly fonts that were supposed to look like handwriting and just made it harder to read.
There are in fact some crazy looking fonts in the lists and I do wonder if anyone ever uses half of them?
Wingdings were funny fonts for all of 10 minutes.
So you might think that using easy to read fonts across your digital assets is the best way and in general I would agree.
But in fact there are areas where using a more complex font can actually be advantageous. Let me explain.
When we try and read harder fonts it takes more effort. This may be a minor thought or irritant. But what studies have found is that when more complex fonts are used and the content is read we can recall the information better because we concentrated more to read it. This kinda makes sense right?
This is not an excuse to go charging off and changing all of your content to more complicated fonts as what will happen is people will stop reading.
When using all of your content in an easy to read font we end up skim reading or not taking it all in.
So where is the balance?
Ideally you should only use more complex fonts in certain areas and not in big chunks.
I would suggest starting with your phone number or email address and then maybe small little areas where you want the visitor to pay more attention. This is a fine balance and too much of anything can spoil a broth.
This does all make sense in today's time pressed society. Consuming any content is an investment and sometimes we do look for shortcuts. When people are quickly scanning information looking for the takeaway they dont really allow the information to sink in and therefore its forgotten about very quickly.
To ensure our hard work and carefully crafted content is not just read but consumed and taken in we may wish to consider the font we use.
Well I personally find this subject fascinating and I hope you did to? What do you think about these Neuroscience type blogs are they interesting to you? I have loads more tips like these if you like them?
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Author- Speaker - Consultant. Passionate about all things digital.