Fonts and their messages

It is my understanding that we use text in the same way that we use the spoken word, to communicate information. For example "This is hot," "I am feeling a bit under the weather," "Yes that hurts so can you please stop jabbing it doctor!" Each sentence is relaying information from one person to another and that tradition is proudly continued though marketing today.

     One of the main differences between type and talk, however, is that, with type, your given a lot more creative freedom with how you want your information to look. This gives it a visual advantage that speech lacks and, therefore, communicates with the recipient both visually and audibly.

     There is one thing I've noticed with shops and signs here in London, It's that you can tell the type of information that the sign wants to convey through the font that the creator chose. In the image above I took of a tabletop game store, the colors are vibrant. The Yellow text with a red border contrast sharply, making the words pop from the black background. I feel it conveys the sense of excitement and joy about it and draws your attention immediately to the words. This style is continued with the picture(road sign by Kensington Palace) below as it too has a black background, forcing your attention to the white letters on it's surface. However. It is filled with sharp angles on all points. Reflective of an Oldstyle font such as the Times New Roman that I'm using for this post. Just looking at it and you know that it's trying to tell you important information. In this case, to be careful with traffic.

     It's an interesting feature that I've noticed with signs here in England and I'm sure I'll pick up more on it when I get back to the states. But it seems to be that; if you want to convey something of importance quickly, use a simpler, sharper text such as Oldstyle fonts. But if you want to convey something jovial, and make it look fun, try and use big letters, bold colors, and font that's a little softer around the edges. Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm going to eat these fun and tasty Rolo Cookies!

Afterthought: Why don't we have these in America?