title: regaining typographical control: the starting point for a more expressive & authentic internet.
1. introduction
as of february 2025, there exist more than 5.25 billion social-media ‘user’ identities in the world1 — 63% of the world’s population is expressing itself online.
while interaction over the internet remains largely multimodal, more than a fourth of all interactions deal with the display of textual information2. in fact, i would reasonably argue that most communication between strangers over the internet happens via the exchange of latin alphabets.
this presents an interesting juxtaposition; i wonder — how can 5.25 billion unique personalities be forced to express via the same nondescript typeface?
previous research over the years strongly suggest that small, concrete changes in typography can influence larger, more abstract perceptions about the communication & its source. for example, xiaobing xu, et. al., have shown that changing the letter-case of a wordmark can make a brand feel more or less authoritative & friendly. aekyoung kim & sam j. maglio have shown that letter-casing directly related to the perception of the messenger’s gender; with lowercase letters feeling more feminine than uppercase ones (and vice-versa). finally, dawn shaikh & barbara chaparro have shown that even people who are not typographically sensitive — such as the “casual consumers of onscreen information” — also attribute personality descriptors to typefaces (such as ‘courier-new’ feeling more cool, stiff, passive, as opposed to ‘poor richard’, which feels more active & exciting).
however, perhaps in pursuit of efficiency, the purpose of typography on screens — and especially in places where people express their personality — is reduced to mere legibility. in fact, dawn shaikh & barbara chaparro explicitly highlight this norm in their study perception of fonts: perceived personality traits and appropriate uses, by showing that people choose expressively-neutral, but legible, typefaces as more ‘appropriate’ for digital screens; thereby stripping letterforms off their innate expressive abilities.
this essay attempts to fight for that ability in digital-interfaces, and argues against the idea of letterforms simply being a vessel for storing & transporting semantic content. furthermore, it proposes that control over typography (and its environment) could lead to a more expressive internet.
in graphic devices: narration and navigation, johanna drucker introduces the term ‘graphic devices’. she writes — “in my usage, the term graphic includes all aspects of layout and composition by which elements are organized on a surface”. then, she presents the argument that graphic elements do more than simply structure narration — they affect the narrative itself in substantive ways.
early in the assimilation of text by image, david (jhave) jhonston argues that typography speaks to the body at a lived level. he writes — (while speaking about illuminated manuscripts from the 5th-15th century) “they physically emulate forms of choreography … the curlicue swirls that adorn these letterforms are the typographic-equivalent of the death flourishes of Sarah Bernhardt or the guitar licks of Jerry Garcia: torsional excess, magnetic vortices seeking to entice … what these features share is that they are all primarily attributes of matter. they reference the world directly in ways that do not require literacy; they are read by experienced embodied subjectivity. as humans, we have tasted honey, known or heard of gold, walked a labyrinth (or studied a curl of smoke), and held things in our hands. so the typography is speaking to the body at a lived level. it is engaging with the energy of our hands, muscles, and tongue”.
the above two examples provide enough inertia to re-examine the power of typography in digital environments, and seeing how perceptible expressive-changes actually could be. in my study, i use the context of a personal-messaging-interface, something like a mock dating application, where people have to make a judgement about the messenger’s personality (who is also a stranger).
2: setup of the experiments:
the objectives of the experiments were to: (a) see what graphic elements people would change in a typographically-heavy interface, if tasked with making the display of a message feel like certain personality traits; and (b) how accurately these changes translated into perception (by other strangers).
borrowing drucker’s definition of graphic elements, a bare-minimum-personal-messaging-interface would contain the following:
- text (content) + its letter-case
- container-color
- font-color
- font
- font-size
- font-weight
- container-padding
- container-roundedness
- leading
- kerning
- background-color
currently, most messaging-platforms allow people the power to change 1/10th of the available elements — the content (and its casing, which is set as the phone’s default). so, an interface was designed with a standard text-message (borrowed from apple’s imessage design), which allowed people control over the different graphical elements.
image
in experiment (a): a person was brought into a closed room, and was asked to list 5 personality traits that they’d want their digital identity to give off on a dating application. they were then asked to craft a two-line message (shaping the content). then, control was given over each graphic element sequentially, with the sole task of making the message feel as close as possible to the previously stated personality traits. for every graphic element, participants could either change the parameters or refuse to change them.
image
after the changes were made, participants were asked about what traits they felt were communicated by the display of their message and why they couldn’t get certain traits across. this experiment was carried out with 4 participants.
in experiment (b): a person was brought into an open space, and was quickly instructed about the premise of experiment (a) — that a person had made certain changes to the display of a message to communicate certain aspects of their personality. their task was to list personality traits reflected in the message, based on their perception. this experiment was also carried out with 4 participants, but each participant was shown all 4 experiment (a) outputs; one after the other; with a control (initial state of the messaging application).
image
results:
experiment(a):
all participants changed the container-color, followed by font and / or leading. no participant decided to change the kerning of the letterforms.
image
via conversations, i could establish that certain traits are easier to communicate via typographical change than others. for example, participant-1 (p1) said: “i don’t know what i can change to make it feel more ‘energetic’”.
interestingly, the sole ability to make a change made many participants want to try. most of them said “can i see” / “can i try”, for more complicated elements such as ‘leading’.
experiment(b):
very few traits come off as 1:1 matches between expression and perception.
image
image
this, i would argue, displays an inability to translate the abstract into concrete (personality trait into graphical element). however, the data immediately becomes more interesting when you let go of trying to match intention to result.
image
there is a clear general image that is largely congruent across participants — i.e, most people can get a sense of what this person is like. now, that is powerful — people have an ability to perceive a stranger, simply based on the aesthetic choices they make; that too over something often considered ‘trivial’ like typography (and its environment).
conclusion:
experiment (a) shows that it is difficult to manipulate typography. since not all users of a digital-interface might not be artistically capable, it is too big of an ask for them to reflect abstract things such as a personality trait via something so specific; such as leading on their messages.
however, experiment (a) also shows that people do make big changes, in, atleast, an attempt to communicate who they are (or who they want to be), by ways of changing the font & container-colour. arguing for the notion that users of a digital-interface should be given more control over graphic elements, i propose looking at the results of experiment (b) more closely.
there is a certain degree of innate authenticity in the aesthetic selection of graphic elements to communicate personality. a person may have problems articulating who they are, and even manage to lie about it (https://www.sbs.com.au/news/insight/article/confessions-of-a-catfisher-fake-identities-online-relationships-and-lies/fyyttvwlc?utm_source=chatgpt.com). however, the task of making the display of their content feel more like them, and receivers having a visceral reaction to it suggests something more authentic between the messenger & its receiver that pre-fabricated personalities.
the fact that a person would choose red over all the other colours in the palette suggests something about them. some of the validity of correlations between aesthetic preferences & personality traits are validated by the work of kalia cleridou & adrian furnham, in their article: personality correlates of aesthetic preferences for art, architecture, and music.
in an internet-world where heaps of expression are based on selective self-presentation, i wonder what difference an ask to make aesthetic choices — such as changing how your messages look to someone else — could make. my gut trusts these intuitive judgements — there is, perhaps, an unharnessed power in the ability to communicate without words, that the internet refuses to actively use.
limitations:
this was a three-week-long assignment, from formulating an enquiry to conducting experiments & writing the paper. i am well aware that i have cut corners on academic rigour, and that drawing conclusions on such a weak dataset (and an underdeveloped experiment) is not ideal.
however, i still believe in the potency of my enquiry. there may be something there; something powerful; that i should examine more closely at a later stage in my life.
asks:
introduction:
Hook: Begin with an interesting fact, quote, or anecdote about the technology medium. Background Information: Briefly introduce the technology medium being explored (e.g., AI voice, virtual reality, social media platforms). Central Question: Clearly state the central question guiding the exploration of this technology (e.g., “How does AI voice enhance or hinder human expressiveness?“).
section 1: historical & technical overview:
Understanding the analog version: What is the analog equivalent that the central question is trying to explore? What about the human pitch, volume, cadence, etc indicate excitement, anger, or lying? Key Features and Functionality: Explain the technical aspects that are relevant to your central question. What makes this technology unique or significant?
2: impact on society / culture:
Positive Contributions: Explore how the technology medium has positively impacted society or culture in the context of the central question. Challenges and Controversies: Give context: how have people used the technology? Paint a picture of the landscape. Address any negative consequences, ethical concerns, or controversies associated with the technology.
3: experiments:
Study 1: Provide a detailed experiment that illustrates the technology’s role in addressing or complicating the central question.
Feeding the AI VOICE program different punctuations
Feed it the original text
Feed it with modifications- Record the changes
Study 2: Offer another experiment that contrasts with the first, showing a different perspective or outcome related to the central question.
4: Analysis of the Central Question (½ -1 page)
Critical Analysis: Delve deeper into the central question, using the case studies or examples as evidence. What do they reveal about the technology’s capabilities or limitations? Trying to see patterns- ei- when I fed it exclamation points, the pitch of the voice got higher.
5: insights:
Section 5: Insights (½ -1 page) What are you wondering about now? Think about your own limitations right now, what would you need to learn or read more about? What new questions came up?
6: conclusion:
Conclusion (1/2 page) Synthesis of Insights: Summarize the key insights gained from exploring the central question. Final Thoughts: End with a thought-provoking statement or question that encourages further reflection on the topic. This can include other questions you weren’t able to explore or questions that developed as you were experimenting.
7: references:
References List all sources cited in your essay, following MLA citation style. At least five citations required.
- file:///Users/a/Downloads/graphology.pdf
Footnotes
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https://datareportal.com/reports/digital-2025-global-overview-report?utm_source=chatgpt.com. ↩
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A Need-finding Study for Understanding Text Entry in Smartphone App Usage: Text entry makes up about one-fourth of the smartphone interaction events, and is known to be challenging and difficult. ↩