Where have all the serifs gone?
A lamentation on the overuse of sans-serif fonts for brand marques.
“The word ‘font' itself comes from the Middle French word ‘fonte’ of the late 16th century. This word denoted the action or process of casting in metal. During this period, printers needed to cast complete sets of letters in metal to make a font. Fonts with a common design were called a typeface.” [Rebecca Strehlow, 10.04.2024, WixStudio]
My father was a journalist. He started out at the Glasgow Herald in 1947, but soon ventured further afield, becoming a newspaper Editor in various parts of Africa and the Persian Gulf, as well as a stringer for the BBC and Agence France-Presse (AFP).
So I suppose it shouldn’t be remarkable that I have a fascination with fonts, typography, layouts, and how text is used in communication. I still recall, aged six or seven, at the Uganda Argus in Kampala, watching an Indian typesetter bashing away at a Linotype machine. (The name of the machine comes from producing an entire line of metal type at once, hence ‘line-o’-type’.) And then watching how the reversed blocks of metal type created the front page for the next day’s paper. (The monster print presses churned out the newspaper, to a deafening mechanical roar. The gargantuan rolls of paper were particularly impressive to my young eyes, whilst the noise and smells were overpowering to my senses.)
When typographers were venerated
On joining Saatchi & Saatchi Advertising in the 1980s I was amazed to discover there was a ‘typography’ department. The typographers were of high status in the agency hierarchy. (Their sporty company cars were a testament to this.) They were respected craftsmen, an essential component of the agency’s all-conquering creative department. (Many of Saatchi’s award-winning campaigns were down to excellence in the use of type. Paul Arden, the agency’s Creative Director, had a wonderful sense of the aesthetic.)
I left Saatchi’s before computers arrived, but joined Faulds Advertising in Edinburgh where they already had a fully-fledged Apple Mac studio. This was the era when technology wiped out thousands of highly skilled jobs at a stroke. (In 1986 Murdoch sacked 6,000 print workers in one day at Wapping.) However the new technology, and desktop publishing, created a new species of typographers; ones that were savvy with computers, QuarkXpress, and Adobe, who were able to format and size all forms of print media, ready for supply to newspapers and printers.
Death by Powerpoint
Today we live in a world where we are all typographers or typesetters; technology has given us the power and means to experiment with fonts, layouts, and visual styling. Despite this gift, it frustrates me to see how this power is so abused. How many readers can say that they have never seen the butchery of fonts and layouts in a simple PowerPoint presentation? Even with the software at our disposal, typography remains a craft. Attractive layout and intelligent use of type requires skill and an aesthetic bent.
The tyranny of sans-serif
On a visit to the fabulous new St James Quarter in Edinburgh last year I was early for a meeting and had the time to roam the centre with my trusty Canon M100. ( I dabble with photography from time to time.) I was struck by the logo styles of the major retail brands in the shopping concourse. This is not a fresh observation, I know, but I noticed how almost all the retail and fashion brands were using sans-serif fonts.
Also, the use of a logo-marque, a badge, design, or graphic, once so popular in branding, has almost disappeared. The brands were mostly all in one style; sans-serif and unfussy. Or were they perhaps a bit dull, lacking in character, and undifferentiated? Are serif fonts an endangered species I wondered?
Which got me musing. What’s going on here? And also, I asked myself, why do we even have serif and sans-serif fonts? What’s the history? (My legally trained mind likes to get to the root of the matter.)
To save you Googling, I’ll try to summarise the history of fonts as far as I can discover. (I caveat my summary with the warning that I do not profess to be an expert.)
The font of all knowledge
Fonts can be traced back to the birth of written language, where the Egyptians, Greeks, and Romans experimented with type, evidenced mostly today by the inscriptions on monuments. Most of us will be familiar with elegant Greek script (Greek majuscule), and Roman lettering, particularly on monuments and ancient buildings.
We have Johannes Gutenberg, with his invention of the printing press in 1440, to thank for a revolution in the creation of fonts. His movable type system, based on Blackletter (or Gothic) script (created in 1452), revolutionised the dissemination of information, making books more accessible and affordable than ever before. It also placed the font at the centre of the printing revolution. Printing, by its very nature, mechanised the reproduction of text. I wonder how many monks were made redundant when their skills at laboriously inking on parchment were no longer required?
Despite Gutenburg’s innovation, it took over 250 years before a significant number of alternative fonts were developed. And, key to the subject of my inquiry, all the early fonts were serif fonts. Indeed, some of today’s most popular fonts are hundreds of years old. Baskerville came along in 1757, Bodoni in 1780 and Didot in 1784. (Geeky point here, italics were first used in 1501.)
And then, over 370 years after Gutenberg, finally we had the first example of a sans-serif font, in 1816. The impressively named William Caslon IV developed ‘Caslon Egyptian’. (I ponder if Mr Caslon ever realised just how significant his ‘invention’ was.) This font quickly became popular, as the clean lines and legibility made it ideal for posters and other printed material, which as the Industrial Revolution took hold, were becoming ubiquitous in the rapidly growing cities across Europe.
The rest is history. Designers and printers created many of the fonts we are familiar with today; Garamond (1510), Bodoni (1798), Slab Serif (1817), Copperplate Gothic (1901), Franklin Gothic (1904), Bembo (1495, but revived in 1929), Gill Sans (1931), Times Roman (1932, created for the Times newspaper), Helvetica (1957, created unsurprisingly in Switzerland), Arial (1982), and Georgia (1993). It is estimated that today there are well over 180,000 fonts. Each one a variation of?26 simple letters. Amazing.
Modernisation or blandification?
I digress. Let’s get back to the St James Quarter and my impression that there has been a surge in brands using sans-serif fonts. Why?
Clearly, both serif and sans-serif fonts have long been used in branding. Chanel (1925), Lufthansa (1963), and Panasonic (1971) are notable brands where sans-serif has been used consistently. Tiffany (1974), Rolex (1905), and Coach (1941) are examples where a more traditional serif style has been consistently applied.
However, there is evidently a trend, especially in fashion branding, to use simple sans-serif type. The examples were all around me at St James Quarter. Demonstrated by both relatively new brands coming to market (e.g. Peloton, Bershka, and The White Company), but also by brands abandoning their historical serif font for a new ‘clean’ sans-serif. Yves Saint Laurent made this change in 2012, Google in 2015, Balmain in 2018, Hugo Boss in 2021, and Center Parcs in 2023. (I confess that my research is far from comprehensive.)?
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The PR-speak for these ‘updates’ is that it is ‘modernisation’ to make the brands ‘more contemporary’, and more suitable for a ‘digital age’. (After all the changes need to be justified to shareholders.) However, I note that some press reaction has been less than positive, with commentators referring to the trend as ‘blandification’.
The other mini-trend I note is the gentle erasing of the brand ‘logo’ or marque. Of course, there are exceptions, (Nike needs no words, just the swoosh) but in my cursory analysis I find that Breitling, Burberry, Swarovski, Armani, Yves Saint Laurent, and Balenciaga have all either reduced or abandoned, their ‘logo’ badges. Again I can only assume this in the interest of ‘clarity’ and simplicity. (The ‘less is more’ argument.)
At the Union, we were asked by Seychelles Tourism to ‘update’ their tourism brand recently. We had developed their new identity in 2006, and then in 2022 were invited back (after a tender process) to refresh the brand. On this occasion, one of the key drivers for the client was that the existing marque was hard to use at small sizes and the varied tonality didn’t work in digital and social media formats. I concede that simplification for such reasons is sensible; the digital landscape in 2006 was very different from today.
Where are we headed?
I asked our Head of Design, the wonderfully talented Bryan Cunningham, what his thoughts were about the simplification of brand design and the frequent use of sans-serif fonts. He observed that it was certainly down to ‘fashion’ and like any fashion, would change over time. I do agree.?
"Fashions fade, style is eternal.” [Yves Saint Laurent]
Indeed, some observers suggest we are already seeing a movement in the other direction. I was fascinated to discover how Burberry clearly had a ‘sans-serif flirtation’ in 2018, before returning to a serif typeface in 2023. What was this all about I wonder? A rogue marketing director? The churn of the brand managers? (I have to say I much prefer the current iteration with the gentle serifs.)
Where is the emotion?
All marketers know that a brand is not a logo, a badge, or a strategy document. A brand only exists in the mind of the customer; and it is a lot more than a set of rational beliefs. It is fundamentally an emotion, a feeling. And as a result, strong brands command a premium in the market. Which is obviously good for business.
“Products are created in a factory, but brands are created in the mind.” [Walter Landor]
I couldn’t get away from the thought that all these retailers, and the brands, were blurring into a whole world of sameness. I know I may not be the target audience, but surely branding is all about distinctiveness and cachet? Are the brand managers, design gurus, and agencies not all just following, rather than leading? Where is the creativity in an all-caps medium-weight sans-serif font with gappy kerning? And where have all the logos gone?
(Phil Adams, a former colleague, and very smart strategy guy, I think will agree with me. His very thoughtful article on the new Lyle’s Golden Syrup rebrand, ‘Clutter is character’, is a great read.)
Maybe I’m showing my age. Or I don’t like change. But I do feel mistakes (e.g. Burberry) are being made, and it’s time for designers and agencies to challenge the status quo. Creativity has always been about disruption and zigging not zagging. At least question the desire to go ‘bland’.
Branding is fun
A big part of our business, and perhaps the part I enjoy the most, is working with clients on brand design. Whether it’s creating a new brand or evolving an existing brand, it is always a great process, full of debate and experimentation. Sometimes the solution is obvious, often it’s not. I’d like to think our designers don’t simply follow the fashions of the day; but this exploration has reminded me how important it is for agencies to maintain a freshness of spirit whenever being asked to create original work.
Fonts are the silent heroes of communication, shaping how we perceive and interact with text. The evolution of fonts and the use of type is, of itself, fascinating. From Gutenberg to the Renaissance, Henry Caslon IV and his sans-serif invention, to Art Deco and Jazz Age styles, 1960s Helvetica, and today’s 180,000 plus fonts, it’s a history full of surprises and cultural relevance.
For everyone in marketing, whether client-side or agency-side, I recommend nurturing a healthy interest in how fonts are used to convey meaning and emotion to the customer. And above all be aware of the dangers of ‘blandification’.
"Typography has one plain duty before it and that is to convey information in writing. No argument or consideration can absolve typography from this duty." [Emil Ruder, Swiss typographer and educator.]
With thanks to the amazing archive website https://1000logos.net The article would have been ten times harder without it as a reference.
And also to St James Quarter for the inspiration! https://stjamesquarter.com
Note: I’m old enough to remember with clarity the Guardian’s April Fool's joke of 1977. In a whimsical nod to the world of typography, they published an article announcing the discovery of a fictional island named ‘Sans Seriffe.’ The article described the island's inhabitants as ‘a race of stick-thin people whose peculiarity is their lack of serifs.’ Advertisers even supported the article with best wishes to the ‘people of Sans Seriffe’. Oh, how I wish the April Fool’s jokes today were as imaginative.
Author's note: From time to time I blog on subjects as varied as marketing, advertising, design, agency life, management and creativity. During the pandemic I shared some of my all-staff emails, and I wrote about my experience of quarantine during August 2020. You can find more articles here.
Chairman, Executive Producer at MTP, MSP, Randan, Brick + Mortar
6 个月Fascinating Ian and even more so when I’d googled what a serif was. You will remember when Edit Suites had high hourly rates and the Agency always brought the Artwork for the end caption to the suite having worked with a typographer to get the kerning perfect. I don’t know if it was better but the crafting was a joy to be part of.
Head Of Design at The Union
6 个月Yeah it's interesting isn't it Ian. The trend for simplifying logos is obviously rooted in the need for brands to work in the digital space but that doesn't mean a logo can't have any personality or character. Your article reminded me of a video on the subject of debranding from a couple of years back: https://youtu.be/e1bjkPerpPs?si=WRjiCa4BsBBYUDya
New Biz at MBP. Content production of Video and Stills. Also freelance Creative Director
6 个月Or comic sans.
New Biz at MBP. Content production of Video and Stills. Also freelance Creative Director
6 个月Brush script is not used really enough.
Mental Health Counselling student, carer, freelance designer and artist.
6 个月So many brands have lost a lot of character particularly in the fashion industry. It’s quite sad really in terms of standing out especially though I supose there is the argument that brands these days have so many ways to communicate their brand through so many channels. I’ve also noticed that labels in that industry have moved away from embroidered labeling to printed. I guess it’s all about trend and trying to appeal to what’s going on now where people are so bomnarded with info businesses are frightened to miss out. FOMO there is also a fear for designers while this trend goes on that there work has to be on trend too which kind of misses the point of brand design really.