Back in May, the type experts over at font foundry Monotype released a report revealing findings from a study they conducted about the effect of typography on humans’ emotions. They’d teamed up with the applied neuroscience company Neurons for “Why fonts make us feel; A scientific study exploring the emotional impact of type,” which digs into the weeds of just how impactful type can be on those perceiving it. After conducting a handful of webinars sharing these results with the public, Monotype has just announced that they are continuing their research and will be releasing further learnings in a second report next year.
“We took a first step in May, and are building new chapters based on the feedback we received from our audience when we hosted public webinars on this topic,” shares Marie Boulanger, brand designer at Monotype and lead director of the research. “This report builds on the first one by bringing in an element of comparison on a specific variable: localization, which was heavily requested as a next step. The ultimate goal is to find where the universality of typographic perception is (if it exists), and where the particularities lie. We are already testing in other regions and plan on changing other variables in the near future, as well as specific use cases. It’s an exciting time!”
Monotype has once again been working with Neurons to conduct this research, as they continue peeling back the layers of the onion of typographic perception. “We expected some degree of regional differences for typographic perception, but didn’t know where it would be most visible, or whether we could predict it,” elaborates Boulanger. “We do have some insight over typographic trends in specific regions from the expertise of the Monotype Studio, but didn’t know how they would play out in this specific study. And this did come true! The main difference is that results were more extreme: highs were higher, lows were lower, and we had less ability to predict ideal pairings.”
This more comprehensive report showing comparison data between different regions of countries is slated for release next year. We can expect it to include another thoughtful batch of insights as Monotype expands on their important work decoding the psychology of typography. As Boulanger herself puts it, “Typography is art, typography is science, but most of all it is culture.”
