Font matters. You wouldn’t know it from my blog, since I’ve barely figured out how to post entries let alone change font, color, and leading. However, as it turns out, for me American Typewriter font is the equivalent of morning caffeine.
See, fonts are visual. They’re visceral. Fonts can weigh down your thought processes or free you up to keep on keeping on. The right font for the job can help you get the job done. More than that, the right font can power creativity. It can help you see words and, by extension, ideas in a whole new way.
Need to type up a work-related something or other? Writing a letter to a friend? Knocking out email after email? Pull a new font out of the library — Trebuchet, Avenir, Candara — and see where it takes you. If you really want to shift your world view, try American Typewriter font. Mindblowing.
In hour umpteen of working on client projects and a novel I’ve rewritten no fewer than six times, when all I want to do is hurl my MacBook out a third-story window and punch every employee at Transamerica and accept the tax penalty for ACA noncompliance because it’s literally ten times cheaper than paying for the catastrophic healthcare plan I have and quit my day job and sip a Santa Sidra cider while planning an around-the-world megatrip —
Wait, have you lost me here? I’m with you. That was one crazy introductory clause. Seventy-eight words long to be precise. I’d grade my students down for using a clause half that long. Depending on my mood, they also might get a stern talking to.
Let me try again. In hour umpteen, I often contemplate hurling my MacBook out a third-story window but instead choose to — you guessed it — change up my font. It’s a parlor trick of sorts. See? It’s not the same old same old. Sure, I’m on hour 12 of work, but the words I’m typing look so pretty! They feel different, fresh, new. I want to type more! I can push on to hour 12, 13, 14 …
Thanks, American Typewriter font. I owe you big.
