Friendly Fonts

About

Common traits of friendly fonts and what they convey Friendly fonts are typefaces that can be fun, inviting, and show a sense of approachability and warmth. They are a natural fit for personal projects, kids’, and playful branding. Friendly fonts tend to be more rounded, with relatively open shapes and generous spacing between letters. Openness helps to create a feeling of lightness. Fonts of this category typically have curves, they can have rounded edges (think of Arial Rounded, a font that comes preinstalled with many computers), and they usually don’t have sharp angles . Often, friendly fonts don’t feel formal or corporate and have a tendency to be loved and used by many people. Research Supporting the Concept of Friendly Fonts While there’s no in-depth research on what exactly makes a friendly font a friendly font, there are many studies on shapes, the underlying substance of type design: – roundness is considered more beautiful – friendly atmosphere through geometric shapes – understanding the role of fonts and their technical aspects The content itself plays another important role when it comes to what kinds of shapes we imagine when we hear certain words: The Bouba-Kiki Effect is a psychological phenomenon that illustrates how people tend to associate certain speech sounds with visual shapes. Specifically, it has been found that a vast majority of people, regardless of their linguistic background, will associate the made-up word “Bouba” with rounded shapes and “Kiki” with pointy shapes. This effect has been observed in numerous studies and is thought to have implications for understanding the evolution of language and how sensory perceptions are interconnected. Balancing Friendly Fonts in Branding Many friendly fonts are display fonts and therefore best used for headlines, pull quotes, and posters because they can be harder to read as body copy. When using these typefaces for headlines, avoid also having text fonts that seek attention. Instead, for your font