In essence, typography is the art of arranging letters and text in a way that makes it legible, clear, and visually appealing to the reader. It involves font style, structure, appearance to convey a message to its audience. Typography is present in all facets of our lives, from the brand designs in companies like Coca-Cola or Instagram to the road signs on the side of the road or on the freeway. It seems so embedded in our lives, but it only lives in the background; however, if a good typography design is at most memorable, a bad typography design can outright cost lives.
The common medical household typographic design we’re most familiar with is the orange prescription bottle. According to The Washington Post, there are 500,000 adverse cases per year in the US where people misread their prescription bottle instructions. This can be due to the non-user friendly design of the bottle. Pharmacy branding is often the first and biggest text people see on the label, which is fairly useless. All the text on the label is small, with the same size and weight, so the user gets confused what should be emphasized or important. Key warnings and cautions are in black font, written on a red box, making it hard to read. This is all compounded by the fact that the user will have to rotate the curved bottle in order to read all of the information. As a result, this is one setting where bad typography can cost the lives of thousands, even millions.
However, bad typography has adverse effects in many more settings. It can undermine the marketing ability of a company, which is pretty minor. But, bad typography can cost the government money and even presidential elections.
Please watch this video if you would like to understand different settings bad typography had an effect on, as it also touches on how better typography can change lives or even history.
