There is a relatively new maxim that suggests how important your choice of font is. Now, not a lot of people take the time to personalize their choice of font-face. However, when it comes to print and Web material where the choice of font type is almost as essential as what the text says, understanding what psychological impacts (subliminal or otherwise) the choice of font would render is important. So much so that a lot of research into this issue has already been conducted.

Graphology: From Handwriting to Font-Face

Graphology, the study of handwriting and how it reveals a writer’s psychological inklings, has found a new point of interest in the many different font-faces available today. Apparently, some font types have a different persona than others.

The curves or loops of script font for instance, are may appeal more to the feminine psyche than the male while the straight and strong lines of font like Verdana could quite easily appeal to the masculine psyche. But aside from the age-old male-female delineation of how things are perceived, there are a number of other perspectives in the psychology behind fonts.

Making an Impact Through Form, Not Just Content

It’s becoming increasingly apparent in research how the form of the font used in print relays messages of its own aside from what the content of the text explicitly conveys. As such, some research into the possible inherent uses of font in rhetoric is underway. The greater number of already published studies though, focuses on the legibility, suitability, and persona of fonts.

Legibility

Obviously, the way a font is designed would influence its legibility. The impressions of stability and conformity in some font types have the edge over more radical font-faces when it comes to professional and academic materials and the like. This legibility factor is becoming increasingly important in today’s modern world where readers and audiences would prefer text that is easily read and scanned for specific important info.

Suitability

Some fonts are more legible, some aren’t. But beyond their legibility, their suitability where they will be used is another big factor. For instance, the respected and trustworthy Times New Roman is better suited to professional correspondence and corporate brochures, while the curves of Georgia is better suited for girls’ nights out invitations.

Personality

But perhaps more interesting is how particular fonts have corresponding personality traits which can be associated with them. Therefore, a letter sent to your boss will need to use font that is respectable and appealing, otherwise it won’t obtain your desired effect.

When you think about it, the font-faces we choose become our modern handwriting. When it comes to designing print material or even Web media, fonts have subtle and overt influences on our audiences, so we can’t simply pick one out offhandedly. In the second part of this blog post we’ll delve deeper into choosing fonts for specific print media.

We’ve touched slightly on the psychology and different perspectives on the influence of font-faces. Now we’ll look into the application of this research into print media and marketing. We would focus on the three perspectives mentioned in the previous post: legibility, suitability, and personality. We’ll also divide print media categories into single page media (or at least media with fewer pages), and multiple page media.

Single Page Print Media

Among the print materials that fall into this category are business cards, flyers, and leaflets. The reason we didn’t bunch them up together with multiple page media is because often print media with many pages would need to carry a motif or theme throughout many pages or folds, whereas single page material just presents the message in a single serving.

When it comes to single page media, legibility is not as much an issue. After all, there’s only so much space in one page or fold – whatever graphic elements included into it should not hinder the text. But the text itself should be able to stand alone and influence the audience in a preferred manner. For instance, a doctor’s business card should use very respectable and professional fonts (think Times New Roman, Bookman Antiqua, and the like). Allowing a bit of imagination, a professional landscaping artist’s card could feature Verdana font. Of course, the subliminal message in choosing Verdana might be lost to people who don’t know the significance of it. Suitability and personality tend to be restricted – there’s not much white space to fill, and most of it often used for graphic elements.

Multiple Page Print Media

Here’s where the factors of legibility, suitability, and personality take a more focal role. Brochures and pamphlets fall into the multiple page category, and as we all know, these print media communicate more data (and employ more sales pitches) than single page media. There are a few points to remember:

Legibility – Ensure the text is readable. Remember, your audience wants to know the bottom line fast – don’t confuse them with swirly text where they can mistake C’s for G’s. Just like in the Web, choose fonts that are readable and scanable in themselves without relying on layout techniques and desktop publishing technology.

Suitability – In a nutshell, fonts that are suitable to the media work well with the overall motif or theme. If there is no motif or theme (there should be), the text should at least work well with the colors, lines, and curves of the layout. It may be barely noticeable, but font-faces that clash with the layout can irk subliminal areas of your audience’s psyches. This means they need to overcome this quirk in perception before being able to digest the actual contents of your print media.

Personality – Last but not the least, the personality your choice of font conveys would be associated with the personality of your business. The problem with this factor is that it depends mainly on popular perception and general conventions on stereotypes and preconceived notions. To be safe, you might want to stick with font-faces that are generally accepted to have a certain personality that works well with your layout and message.

The depth and breadth of the nitty-gritty of the psychology of fonts is pretty confusing. Hopefully, we’ve tackled above the important points that would make a difference in your print media.

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Many projects require you to design for mulitple types of mediums: postcards, posters, websites, billboards. You can start with a MASSIVE Photoshop file or instead use Illustrator for your designs. Since typography is central to almost any design, Illustrator is the ideal tool if you are going to be using your design in multiple sizes.

Two type tools of interest when designing in Illustrator include the Area Type Tool and Masks (clipping or opacity). This article walks you through each of the options that make conforming type to your every desire possible.

Option #1 — Area Type Tool

The Area Type Tool allows you to type within the area of a path. For example, if you have a square you can simply type within this area and manipulate the square later and the text will dynamically update. For this article, we will use a star shape to show you how to make the most use of the tool’s features.

In Illustrator, open a new document and draw a shape of your choosing or use an existing project of your own.

Now, within the Type Toolbar, you can select the Area Type Tool. To enable the tool to work, you must select the area you want the text to adhere to by clicking along a path.

Now you can type within the area of your shape and the text will conform to it. But this probably isn’t enough. You may need to be able to manipulate how the type moves within the shape. Using Times New Roman and default settings, our star pattern looks like this:

To get the type to adjust more appropriately, open the Paragraph window (Windows -> Type -> Paragraph):

You can use various options like hyphenate and justify to get the text to fit the shape better.

For more detail work, double-click the Area Text Tool in the toolbar where you can tweak how closely the text adheres to the area paths. Make sure to check the Preview box so you can see your changes in real-time. Notice the red plus sign in the images above? This means that some of your text cannot fit inside of the area (the star in this example). Click on the plus sign to create a new container or enlarge your area (star).

Option 2 — Clipping Masks

Clipping masks are either on or off, meaning that you can either see what is being “masked” or you can’t. This is different than Opacity Masks (discussed later) which allow you to see what is being masked based upon how much opacity is applied.

We will start off with a block of dummy text for demonstration purposes.

Going back to the star shape, place a star in the middle of the text as shown:

Before applying the Clipping Mask, open your Layers window (Windows -> Layers) and make sure the two shapes on your Artboard are arranged so that your new star is immediately above the text block and in its own layer, like this:

With the entire layer selected (not just one of the shapes), at the bottom of the Layers window is the “Make/Release Clipping Mask” button. Press this to apply the clipping effect.

Your final result should look like this:

You can move the mask around by selecting the star shape layer (highlighted in the above example) and the text area is still fully editable allowing you to change the font, colors, etc.

Option 3 — Opacity Masks

If you want even more control of masks, reach for the Opacity Masks option in Illustrator. This gives you a great deal more ability to manipulate the effect, but it’s a bit tricky. There are other ways of doing this, but this process means you won’t miss anything important.

First, start with a block of dummy text.

In the Layers menu, select the layer. Now open the Transparency tool (Windows -> Transparency).

In the Transparency tool, click the fly-out menu and select Make Opacity Mask.

Now, in the Transparency tool, unlock the opacity mask by clicking the chain symbol.

Now, still in the Transparency tool, select the mask (the black shape next to the text layer) by clicking on it.

Using any tool you want, create a shape. We’ll stick with our favorite — the star, of course!

Wait! Nothing happened! No fear. With your shape you just drew selected, change the foreground color to a shade of gray.

Now that you understand the tool a bit better, click the Gradient Tool and apply the following using the Windows -> Gradient toolbar:

To move the entire set of layers around, simply click the layer in the Transparency window. To only move the mask, click the mask in the Transparency window. The only downside to this approach is that to edit the underlying text layer, you must first release the opacity mask, so you may want to make sure you have your text perfect before playing around with an opacity mask.

Illustrator has some very awesome text features, of which masks and area type are only a few. However, with these two tools under your belt, you have lots of cool text effects at your fingertips and now have a good basis for moving on to more difficult tools. What kind of effects have you been able to come up with these three tools for creating dramatic type in Illustrator?