In celebration of the official launch of Why Fonts Matter in the US today: Liz Stinson from Wired played the Type Dating Game via Skype. “20 percent of women said they’d pick Franklin Gothic as their typographic beau, the winner by a landslide. I know it sounds weird.”
Wired
If You Love That Font So Much, Why Don’t You Date It?
By Liz Stinson
In celebration of the official publication of Why Fonts Matter in the US today we’re looking back over articles and interviews that give a glimpse of the impression we’ve made on the world at large.
Jake Wallis Simons from CNN came to the Type Tasting studio and played a selection of Type Tasting Games. “As bizarre as it sounds, my job is to match up the bottles and fonts using only my sense of smell.”
CNN
What’s your type of lover? How fonts could help you find the perfect date
By Jake Wallis Simons
Take a walking tour of Dalston in East London with author Sarah Hyndman. See how the signage reveals that the area dates back to the 1800s with its own grand department store, pie & eel shop, Art Deco cinemas, a factory that sold paints to JMW Turner, and the market that inspired Eastenders.
Update. There are no Type Safaris departing this year as Sarah focuses on new and exciting projects. If you would like to arrange a private tour for your company please get in touch with sarah(a)typetasting.com.
“Fabulous tour of Dalston… Exploring the urban fabric through type” Sarah Stewart, Londonist
“A unique & interesting way to ‘read’ the city.” Sophie Nellis
“Fun” “Brilliant” “Inspiring” “Eye-candy” “Enlightening” Amazon reviews
“A fascinating insight into how type can influence our feelings, our senses, and even our taste” Professor Charles Spence, University of Oxford
Bookseller 10 titles not to miss
Why Fonts Matter by Sarah Hyndman is out now, published by Virgin Books (Penguin/Random House).
I was delighted to be invited on to Channel 4’s Sunday Brunch yesterday (Sunday 7th February) to talk about my new book Why Fonts Matter and play some classic Type Tasting games. It was a fast-paced and fun 9 minutes. The aim had been to show that typography can be fun and accessible; that it doesn’t always have to be an intellectual discussion, and from the feedback on Twitter we achieved this. I demonstrated how type tells us how expensive or calorific a product might be. I talked about Simon choosing a typeface for his restaurant menus to convey that the chef is skilful (and discovered that he has an aversion to italics). We had a quick look at the Type Dating Game, before Tim and Simon both chose a typeface card and read out their own personality analysis. We ended with font sniffing: pairing the smells to the shapes of typefaces, and I explained why most people give very similar answers.
Click here to play the Font Fortune personality analysis game yourself.
The Type Tasting props posing nicely with the Channel 4 logo in the background.
This is one of the games I’m going to play on Sunday Brunch tomorrow…
Choose the card you prefer and click on it to read your Font Fortune.
FINAL WEEKEND
It’s the final weekend to purchase a copy of the first edition of The Type Taster: Why Fonts Influence You
Books purchased this weekend will all be signed and have free UK postage
This first, limited edition of the book is only available until the end of Sunday 25th October 2015.
From 28th January 2016 The Type Taster will be published as Why Fonts Matter under the Virgin Books imprint of Penguin Random House.
Click here to pre-order Why Fonts Matter
Yesterday I was invited to be one of the guests on BBC Radio 4’s Saturday Live to talk about how we respond to typefaces. I took along some of the games that had gone down so well at the Pop-up Type Tasting at the V&A for the London Design Festival the previous weekend. Above is actor Sophie Thompson playing the ‘Feel Me’ game matching what she can feel to one of the fonts shown, if you came along to the event last weekend you know exactly which font she’s feeling from the expression on her face!
It was such an interesting programme to be on. Sophie is delightful and a pleasure to listen to, and I was excited to meet Peter Bleksley who is one of the hunters on ‘Hunted’ with the most amazing voice. It seems that we would all love the challenge of being on the next series and going on the run in an attempt to evade capture for 28 days. Third guest Trevor Lyttleton founded a charity which works with the elderly and we had a great chat afterwards about the power of typefaces on packaging to trigger nostalgia and bring back memories.
Scroll down for links to listen to the show.
If You Love That Font So Much, Why Don’t You Date It?
By Liz Stinson for Wired
“If I were going to date a typeface, it would probably be something like Franklin Gothic bold condensed. The font is undeniably masculine—sans-serif, solid, reliable. If it were a human, it’d be the type of guy who would fix my broken sink and play football in the backyard on Thanksgiving. I’m not alone here. Lots of women find Franklin Gothic to be a total dreamboat.”
“Some proof: When graphic designer Sarah Hyndman asked women to choose between dating nine fonts including Franklin Gothic, Futura Light, Helvetica, and Arial bolded round, 20 percent of women said they’d pick Franklin Gothic as their typographic beau, the winner by a landslide. I know it sounds weird, but let me explain. Hyndman’s dating question is part of Tasting Type, a series of online experiments she’s been performing to gather data on how typography impacts human perception.”
Type Tasting Blog 