Think Outside the Font: How Typefaces Influence

Join graphic designer Sarah Hyndman for an interactive talk full of demonstrations about how typefaces influence what we read. Type is both functional and provocative; Sarah demonstrates how fonts trigger memories, evoke associations and prompt multi sensory responses. She combines her experiences as a graphic designer with results of research by psychologists and neuroscientists. The audience will have the opportunity to volunteer to be ‘lab rats’ in the ‘Tested on Humans’ research: Sarah’s ongoing research into typeface associations with fun games and surveys.

Type is shown to be ‘hidden in plain sight’, the audience will test the effectiveness of type as a human voice-recording device with a game of ‘type karaoke’. They will participate in a demonstration of type evoking different senses such as taste (hopefully with samples). They will explore the associations we’ve learned through popular culture and it will be shown that designers and non-designers experience type differently.