Proving their point without trying
This bit of research on fonts caught my attention.

The authors are trying to make a connection between "liberal" vs "conservative" personality types and the fonts chosen by campaigns.

After running through a bunch of meaningless theoretical crap about personality types, they finally followed Carver.

LOOK ABOUT YOU.
TAKE HOLD OF THE THINGS THAT ARE HERE.
TALK TO THEM.
LET THEM TALK TO YOU.

In this case the THINGS THAT ARE HERE are the fonts ACTUALLY CHOSEN by the Bernie and Obama campaigns.

The allegedly "conservative" font was Times New Roman, but the study didn't try to find fonts used by Trump or Romney campaigns. Presumably the authors couldn't stand to look at Unthink.

There's probably some validity in the main distinction. "Conservative" types prefer serif, "Liberal" types prefer sans.

I'm the "conservative" personality type for sure, and I unquestionably prefer serifs**. The preference arises from an engineerish focus on functions instead of details. When you know how things work you don't need the details. Serif fonts are inherently connective, creating an implicit baseline and structure. Sans fonts are inherently separate and disconnected, all detail and no structure. The same distinction works in grammar.

The Bernie font is a serif type, which might seem contradictory by the usual meaningless labels. No contradiction when you're thinking in terms of functions vs details. I like Bernie, and would have voted for him in 2016. He's functional and structured, always working toward one purpose for his entire political life.

The authors accidentally proved this with their own choice of fonts.



They used a Roman font for the headings (structure) and a sans font for the details.

= = = = =

** I've been applying this distinction consciously for a long time, and it's visible in blog cartoons with captions. Polistra always speaks in an antique Roman font, and media idiots always speak in sans fonts. Example from 2013.

Labels: Carver

  ¶ 1:29 AM