Fonts have different personalities that can create trust or mistrust, give you confidence, make things seem easier to do or make a product taste better. Understand the science behind how fonts influence what you read. They're hidden in plain sight, they trigger memories, associations and multi-sensory experiences in your imagination. You may not believe it, but fonts can change the meanings of words right before your very eyes, alter the taste of your food, evoke emotional responses and reveal their users' personalities.

Graphic designer Sarah Hyndman specializes in exploring how fonts influence us as type consumers; Why Fonts Matter synthesizes Hyndman's 20 years of experience as graphic designer with her typographic research and the findings of experimental psychologists and neuroscientists.

Hyndman, Sarah

Hyndman's research into typefaces as cultural codes has been co-published with Professor Charles Spence of the University of Oxford. She quantifies how audiences respond to typefaces through live experiments, surveys and interviews. Her research is self-initiated, self-funded and her goal is to show how typography can create positive change in the world.