As design journalists, we prefer to suppose we perceive the ability of fonts. Typography is a vital pillar of design, one with the ability to elicit sturdy unconscious responses from the reader. However as a captivating new examine from main sort foundry Monotype reveals, not all people views sort in the identical means.Titled ‘Fonts, Feels, & Reels: Generational Attitudes to Kind’, the multi-country examine explores how over 12,000 social media customers, from Gen Z to Boomers, use fonts as a type of visible language – and the way youthful generations particularly are utilizing them to construct identification, create emotional connection, and form how their content material is acquired.
(Picture credit score: Monotype)78% of all respondents reported that utilizing distinctive fonts boosts engagement on social posts. In the meantime, lack of font alternative is a frustration, with greater than half of Gen Z and Millennials annoyed by the restricted font choices on social media platforms. This has led creators to go “off-platform” for higher font freedom, with 71% of those that use exterior design instruments for creating social media posts doing it particularly for extra font alternative and management.
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We caught up with Tom Foley, govt artistic director at Monotype, to seek out out extra concerning the learnings from the report, in addition to the motivation behind it. When you’re on the lookout for extra typographical inspiration, check out our roundup of the perfect free fonts.Why did you resolve to check how totally different generations method fonts?Each era has an consciousness of fonts. Whereas we used social media as a spotlight for this report, the general purpose was to get a perspective on how totally different generations or individuals really feel about sort. Relying on what interval you grew up in, what applied sciences you have been uncovered to, and what know-how you utilize daily, you’re going to have a unique perspective on sort – digital sort, particularly. So it’s unsurprising that Gen Z is way extra literate and assured with sort as a method of expression. The background to this piece of analysis was a broader work, which is our developments report in 2025. The unique report was all concerning the typical stuff you’d anticipate in a sort report – accessibility, readability, and so forth. However we realised there was one thing lacking inside that subject, one thing much less about tutorial analysis or the kind designers perspective, and extra concerning the customers themselves, and what their preferences are. What’s putting for us is simply how a lot of an opinion individuals have on sort and the way a lot significance they offer it. As a sort company we work with manufacturers and do person testing, however to see it purely from the attitude of customers, with out the model and the company within the center, you get a unique lens on it.
(Picture credit score: Monotype)Do you suppose social media platforms are letting customers down when it comes to font choice?One among our finds is that customers want that they had extra choices out there. Maybe as a result of the platforms don’t even realise there’s the demand or expectations. For a lot of, sort as a cultural asset of technique of communication is ignored. But it surely’s so essential – it’s a signifier towards a sure style or type. But it surely’s under-researched. So I believe that is most likely a part of the rationale why social media platforms do not supply extra, as a result of they have not obtained sufficient proof to counsel that it is as essential because it actually is.
(Picture credit score: Monotype)Is sort actually as essential to private expression as the garments we put on?Nicely, you need to put it in context. Within the context of social media or a digital platform the place you’re posting plenty of sorts of content material, typography is usually a thread, and it may be a thread that sort of underpins your type or desire or perspective. When accomplished effectively, typography may be an especially efficient communicator of style, cultural background, intention, tone of voice and emotion. So it is most likely much more pure and direct than the garments we put on. It is extra distilled. And on a cultural degree, what we’re seeing during the last ten, fifteen years is a greater understanding of the unconscious means sort influences us. It has this sort of silent persuader high quality to it. Or turning into extra conscious of it on a sort of a extra on a regular basis person degree. So we’re at an attention-grabbing second with it. It is sort of turning into much less specialist data and turning into extra mainstream.
(Picture credit score: Monotype)How will you be sure your font matches your message?In case your font doesn’t match your message, it’s an actual missed alternative. Once we work with manufacturers, designers, and totally different platforms on typeface choice or customized font design, we regularly meet individuals who really feel they don’t have any experience in typography. They arrive into workshops hesitant to share an opinion, pondering they don’t know what they’re speaking about.The way in which we construction these artistic periods is to interrupt down that hesitation and get individuals to reply instinctively to sort, with out overthinking it. We’ll ask questions like: What does this typeface make you’re feeling within the second? That emotional response is usually the perfect information when selecting sort, particularly for a private or expressive model.It’s actually about tone of voice: how does the kind make you’re feeling, and does that feeling align with what you need to talk? Considering purely in technical phrases, whether or not it’s a serif or sans serif, show or textual content face, received’t all the time result in the suitable alternative. The hot button is to attach the emotional impression of the kind with the message you need your viewers to remove.Why do fonts matter greater than ever in 2025?Since 2020, there’s been loads of speak about digital transformation. It’s been a buzzword, but it surely’s additionally a actuality that’s unfolded quickly. Manufacturers that hardly had a digital presence six years in the past now should exist in every single place, throughout social media, web sites, and a number of world platforms.In that context, typography is the one component in a model’s toolkit that may constantly join all these digital touchpoints. Greater than color, greater than a brand, much more than sound, sort can stay uniform throughout each platform. That makes it one of the vital essential elements of a visible identification.When a model will get its typography proper, whether or not that’s an organization, a platform, and even a person constructing a private model, it creates an virtually instantaneous sense of recognition. A robust typographic identification can obtain that sooner than color or form alone. Essentially the most recognisable logos on this planet are typographic for that cause.Symbols and icons can work, however they not often obtain the identical common recognition. Characters, like mascots or model figures, such because the meerkats from Examine the Market, may create sturdy associations, however they’ll’t seem in each put up, caption, or video in the identical means sort can.That’s why typography is extra essential than ever. It holds a model’s communication collectively throughout each medium. When it’s flawed, it’s a missed alternative, however when it’s proper, the advantages are unparalleled.Each day design information, opinions, how-tos and extra, as picked by the editors.
