The real Literary Twitter drama this week was about . . . fonts.
Yesterday Twitter proved that I am not, in fact, alone in my font neuroticism. After author Séan Richardson posted this on Twitter…
Please reveal the deepest part of yourself: Which font and which size do you write in?
— Séan Richardson (@Southldntabby) January 26, 2020
…users responded, in great detail, to explain their preferences and the particularities of their writing process. Beyond revealing our fun, weird obsessions with font styles, Richardson suggested, responses to the question showed just how much fonts can function, if not like unique languages, then perhaps something like dialects.
“Since we spend so much time with fonts, it’s unsurprising they provoke such strong emotions,” Richardson told The Guardian. “The reaction to the tweet is fascinating because it goes beyond personal preference and into questions of identity, accessibility, place, accent and style.”
Size 12 fonts seemed to be the most popular, followed by 11-point. Arial, Times New Roman, Calibri, and Garamond were mentioned most often. Attorney and New York Times best-selling author Rabia Chaudry was firmly in the Calibri camp.
— rabia O’chaudry (@rabiasquared) January 27, 2020
Author and arts columnist Amy Biancolli advocated having open relationships with fonts.
As I write and rewrite and re-re-re-write, I change up the font and size with successive drafts to dupe my eyeballs into seeing what I’ve written in a fresh light.
I highly recommend this polyamorous approach to typefaces. It’s terrifically useful.
— Amy Biancolli (@AmyBiancolli) January 28, 2020
Lastly, let’s appreciate how some of the more dedicated users wore their preferences on their sleeves, so to speak.
Oh my goodness I just replied to the main thread with this. Love seeing others committed to their font pic.twitter.com/AlX8iqrF0I
— Hannah Wheatley (@_hannahwheatley) January 28, 2020
