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So which font is your favourite for a press release? Do you use one particular typeface over another? If so, why? Is it because your agency has a set house style that you are obliged to employ, or does your personal preference dictate?
I pose these questions because it is not widely appreciated that fonts have a huge amount of power. The shape and style of the characters that form a document can subconsciously affect what a reader thinks of its content. While it’s not the case that selecting a particular typeface will turn a poor release into a good one, the right choice of font for an already strong piece of work can subtly enhance its influence further.
In July 2012, filmmaker Errol Morris conducted an experiment with approximately 45,000 unsuspecting nytimes.com readers, displaying an article in one of six typefaces: Baskerville, Comic Sans, Computer Modern, Georgia, Helvetica, and Trebuchet. Using a cover question, “Are You an Optimist or a Pessimist?” readers were prompted to engage with the text, which spoke about the likelihood of an asteroid destroying the earth. The survey afterward asked whether they thought the statement was true.
The results were very interesting indeed, revealing that subjects were more likely to agree with the statement when it appeared in Baskerville. For every 1,000 respondents to the survey, almost five more people agreed with the statement when it was written in this particular font than they did when it was written in Helvetica. Although the figure appears small, David Dunning, the psychology professor who helped devise the test, said that it was statistically significant:
“It’s small, but it’s about a 1% to 2% difference — 1.5% to be exact, which may seem small but to me is rather large…. Many online marketers would kill for a 2% advantage either in more clicks or more clicks leading to sales.”
Morris and Dunning’s experiment revealed that the second place most trustworthy font out of the six was Computer Modern, which was followed by Georgia, then Trebuchet and then Helvetica. Perhaps unsurprisingly, Microsoft’s child-oriented Comic Sans font, based on the lettering found in comic books, came out as the least trustworthy of the six by quite a margin.
Although the experiment didn’t target industry professionals like editors who work with typefaces daily, the findings suggest subtle takeaways. Traditional fonts like Baskerville might be seen as too ‘Olde Worlde’ for modern press releases, potentially frustrating editors. Yet, a more contemporary option could serve well in PR.
But there is a more modern typeface that you might just consider using as the default one for your marketing material. In another survey, the personality traits of nine common fonts found on Windows and Macintosh systems were studied, with five shortlisted based on their perceived professionalism, reliability, formality, assertiveness and friendliness. A poll was then carried out to find the most trustworthy typeface to convey trust in a financial context. Arial was chosen as the most appropriate, followed by Lucida Grande and Georgia.