typography is fun1
I recently went down the rabbit hole of typography. Specifically, the formal elements of typography and how they affect branding. Questions like why does Nerd font look so “nerdy” or why does Comic Sans look so “goofy” have been on my mind.
I don’t have the answer yet, but I wanted to give context to how I got here. As there is a “language” to data visualization, I wondered if there was a “language” in typography in relation to textual form.
I made some delightful discoveries. The reason why Nerd fonts have been deemed “nerdy” is because they are monospace sans-serif typefaces. Monospace typefaces have been historically used in coding applications because they allow clear spacing between letters, which heavily affects the readability of a codebase.
Thus, the description of monospace fonts as “nerdy” follows from the historical usage due to how well adapted it was for coders. The same can be said of serif’s reputation for “elegance” or sans-serif’s reputation for “modern”.
my personal favorite fonts
I didn’t make this post to share the history and progression of typography. I made this post to share my favorite fonts I found after reading. In no particular order, here they are grouped by typeface family.
sans serif
- Bauhaus: It was created with formalism as its key point, using only “bars” and “circles”.
- Noto Sans: I like this font for its ethos (no tofu). A typeface covering all languages.
- Helvetica: A “neutral” typeface.
monospace
- Nerd Family: It’s a good font.
- Inconsolata: Default for VSCode.
- Terminess: A specific nerd font I use.
serif
- Spectral: The “e” glyph makes it feel “floaty”.
script
I don’t know if I like any script typefaces.
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Post inspired by Thinking with Type and The Elements of Typographic Style. ↩