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Baskerville Is the Greatest Font, Statistically, Says Filmmaker Errol Morris

Posted by timothy on from the your-brain-is-vulnerable dept.

An anonymous reader writes "A survey of unsuspecting New York Times readers implicitly answered the question: Does a certain font make you agree or disagree more often than another font? It turns out Baskerville confers a 1.5% advantage towards agreement on a survey question, compared to an average of six fonts. They were asked to agree or disagree to a passage from physicist David Deutsch's book The Beginning of Infinity, and were found to have an optimistic, if Baskerville-favoring, outlook on life. David Dunning, a psychologist awarded a Nobel prize and, separately, an IgNobel prize (for the eponymous Dunning-Kruger Effect), called Baskerville 'the king of fonts.' Sadly, Comic Sans — notable for its appearance in the Higgs Boson announcement — seems to be the weakest font. And why did Lisa Randall, the Harvard physicist responsible for that Higgs announcement use Comic Sans? According to the article, 'Because I like it.'"

20 of 158 comments (clear)

  1. watch the "Helvtica" documentary... by acidfast7 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wkoX0pEwSCw

  2. Links by clinko · · Score: 5, Informative

    Baskerville: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baskerville

    Open Baskerville: http://klepas.org/openbaskerville/

  3. Compensatory depletion by K.+S.+Kyosuke · · Score: 4, Insightful

    And why did Lisa Randall, the Harvard physicist responsible for that Higgs announcement use Comic Sans? According to the article, 'Because I like it.'"

    Given the mostly fixed number of neurons available to any single individual, the talent for physics must have come from somewhere... obviously, the aesthetics circuits got the short end of the deal.

    --
    Ezekiel 23:20
    1. Re:Compensatory depletion by Missing.Matter · · Score: 4, Interesting

      I majored in physics in college, and spent a lot of time with physicists from world renowned Nobel prize winners to lowly undergraduates. I can testify that physicists, in addition to lacking any appreciation for visual aesthetics, also lack the ability to properly dress themselves, shave their faces, comb their hair, speak to an audience not of their peers, and most of all they have no understanding of proper hygiene. We used to have a lounge out of which at least half a dozen kids were living, toothbrushes and all. The stench still haunts me. I remember walking into the lavatory where 3-4 physics majors were taking a shower out of a sink.

      Oh, and lest you think I'm a-hatin', most of the above applies to me as well.

    2. Re:Compensatory depletion by thegarbz · · Score: 4, Funny

      Having met Lisa Randall at a conference down under I can say fortunately she not only showered that day but also looked quite hot. Mind you this was several years ago and I was single so admittedly so did Margaret Thatcher

    3. Re:Compensatory depletion by gdr · · Score: 4, Funny

      Every time I ever get an email or printout using Comic Sans it's from a woman. I got a name sign for my cubical in Comic Sans and I had to print myself a new one because I don't work in a f***ing kindergarten.

    4. Re:Compensatory depletion by Young+Master+Ploppy · · Score: 5, Interesting

      I find Comic Sans very hard to read. Times New Roman too. Can't understand how these fonts can be allowed to exist!

      I actually asked an OFSTED inspector why Comic Sans is always used in schools and nurseries - she said that it's one of the only commonly-available fonts that draws the lowercase letter "a" in the same way they teach children to draw it (no stalk on top)

      --
      http://instantbadger.blogspot.com
  4. I read the article... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    and Lisa Randall was not the responsible for the announcement.

    Lisa Randall, a Harvard physicist, kindly e-mailed Fabiola Gianotti on my behalf. Gianotti, the coordinator of the CERN program to find the Higgs boson, provided a compelling rationale for why she had used Comic Sans. When asked, she said, “Because I like it.”

    Lisa *asked* the responsible.

    Oh editors, I miss the times where at least you read the submitted articles. Now the anonymous guy can write whatever he wants in the summary and you'll publish it.

    1. Re:I read the article... by edsousa · · Score: 4, Funny

      and I should start to login before posting... Now that I think of, the submitter probably used Baskerville in his submission to fool the editors-

  5. Mistake in the summary by fondacio · · Score: 5, Informative

    The summary misstates the person responsible for using Comic Sans in the Higgs boson announcement. The full quote:

    Lisa Randall, a Harvard physicist, kindly e-mailed Fabiola Gianotti on my behalf. Gianotti, the coordinator of the CERN program to find the Higgs boson, provided a compelling rationale for why she had used Comic Sans. When asked, she said, “Because I like it.”

    I was already wondering why a Harvard physicist would be making the announcement of a discovery by CERN.

  6. Re:1.5% from a survey? by Trepidity · · Score: 4, Informative

    They don't seem to represent the sampling uncertainty graphically as error bars, but if you scroll down to the paragraph that starts with "Are the results the product of chance?", they do a basic statistical analysis, and find that Baskerville performs better than average with p < 0.01 (and still p < 0.05, if you do a Bonferroni correction).

    --
    10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
  7. Very interesting. by mcmonkey · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Time to update my resume.

  8. Dunning doesn't have a Nobel Prize by JoshuaZ · · Score: 5, Informative

    I'm really fond of the Dunning-Kruger effect to the point where I mention it almost daily and people get annoyed with me. So I was really surprised to hear the claim in summary that Dunning had a Nobel. What would it be in? The last time a psychologist got a Nobel it was for work related to economics. Sure, enough 10 seconds of fact checking, verified that he's not on any list of Nobel Laureates, such as http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Nobel_laureates or the official lists at Nobelprize.org. The claim about Dunning getting a Nobel isn't in TFA so I'm not sure where it came from.

    1. Re:Dunning doesn't have a Nobel Prize by badfish99 · · Score: 5, Funny

      I'm really fond of the Dunning-Kruger effect to the point where I mention it almost daily

      So: would you say that you have an expert level of skill and knowledge on this particular topic?

  9. Testing... by jones_supa · · Score: 5, Funny

    You should send 10M€ to my bank account.

  10. Re:OMG Flamebait - Flame on! by Defenestrar · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Dyslexia

    While not the best, it's decent and by far the most widely available (of the fonts dyslexics find easier to read).

  11. Re:Comic sans is likely the most divisive font by cashman73 · · Score: 4, Funny

    Damnit! I knew Obama shouldn't have written the Affordable Care Act in Comic Sans!

  12. Helvetica FTW by Reasonable+Facsimile · · Score: 4, Funny

    "Yo, Baskerville, I'm really happy for you, and Imma let you finish, but I just got to say Helvetica is one of the best fonts of all time."

  13. Garamond by khendron · · Score: 4, Interesting

    In the Typography course I took, we were taught that the greatest font of all time is Garamond.

    It wasn't even tested in this article.

    --
    Life is like a web application. Sometime you need cookies just to get by.
  14. Re:OMG Flamebait by jandrese · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Comic Sans is utterly despised by anybody who cares about fonts, but for everybody else it's just another option that they can choose if they feel like it. Lisa Randall is in the latter group, she's too busy discovering the secrets of the universe to care what font would win her the most esteem among people who give a shit about fonts.

    --

    I read the internet for the articles.