Infographic Category Education

A History of Western Typefaces

By | source: Mar 29th, 2012

We all love to poke fun at people for using Comic Sans in inappropriate places. But there is even more complexity to the usage and properness of various fonts. Did you know some guy in the 18th century claimed that a certain font would blind readers? I guess some people don’t mess around with typeface. In today’s world, font is very important in establishing an identity or brand, as is seen by the distinct fonts in Facebook and Google. Saving the environment even influences people’s font choice. The University of Wisconsin changed their standard font to save ink on prints.

Totally random story that I just thought of- A couple of weeks ago I finished a large group report of 30+ pages with words, figures, equations, etc. After submitting it, I decided to change the font to Webdings; it was the best laugh I’ve had in a very long time. Maybe it was the release of stress from finishing the report.

Anyhow, hope all the history buffs out there enjoy this infographic, there are some interesting little bits of info. There are definitely some potential Jeopardy questions in there. [Via]