Its artisanal quality, because typefaces, lettering, any kind of letter sets, are unique in their own way.

You don't need to apologize, Rui. You write English better than many native speakers. Most Americans--including some who post on this site--would have used "It's" in the sentence above.

I agree with Victor, you are quite eloquent!

2. The second reason is that since typefaces produce cultural value we might conclude that, in type design the matter of Impact on the cultural landscape is more significant than the common design paradigm – Form serves Function.

Absolutely. The typographically challenged may think choosing the right typeface for a job is just a detail, but I am sure subconsciously people react bad to 'bad' type and good to 'good' type.

You know you're good when a Dutchman compliments your English. The Dutch speak English better than we do!

You might be interested in this old thread, too.

Larson wrote an article "Measuring the aesthetics of reading" which I have seen published in many places. I believe the most accessible one comes from TYPO magazine. Worth a read.

On their own, I don't think fonts have much cultural value. They're pleasant to look at in catalogs or font websites. A designers/typographer's choice of font has more cultural impact than fonts themselves could ever have. A font designer can design provocative fonts but if designers don't use it, the cultural impact is nothing.

Type makes the world better? It's nice to have good tools available so, yes. A good choice of hammers and nails makes the world a better place too. Having a richer palette of tools helps designers make the world more interesting. Unsold type doesn't make the world better or worse. People talk about the cultural impact of fonts like Helvetica but it's wasn't the font itself that had impact. The same thing could have happened with Univers. The cultural impact of Helvetica was that one particular, neutral sans-serif attained ubiquity. If you could go back in history, swap Univers and Helvetica designs, I don't think it would have any cultural impact. The world would look almost the same as it does now. If designers had, instead decided to embrace a slab serif font instead of a sans, if would have some impact.

However, you won't find a shortage of people who think fonts themselves have rich cultural value. I don't really see it that way. If you're a painter, a good font is like finding your perfect brush and tube of paint with the perfect shade of green. If you want to endow the tools with mystical powers, go right ahead.

hello guys.

Christopher, thank you for the recommendation. This article is definitely Worth a read. Nice to see this kind of things measured.

Ray, I agree with you that the cultural impact of the fonts depend on the designers choices and preferences, and their general acceptance, and also that a font is a tool. What I have to disagree is that tools don't have a cultural impact by them selves. Surely if a font seats unused it attains no visibility and provides no impact. However it is a broadly agreed notion that the advent of new tools influences contents, it has always been like this with every technology.

I'm saying this without elaborating about what might be cultural impact. I guess what I am referring to is the aesthetics of the written contents. Like the aesthetics studied in "The aesthetics of reading" by Kevin Larson and Rosalind Picard that Christopher recommended.

Victor and Theunis, thank you for you for your kindness.

fonts are for sissies™

-bowerbird