But to distinguish between the two, the study had to give people the same words, laid out in different fonts. In total, the team surveyed 400 men and women between the ages of 18 and 50.

Halloween-themed documents may look different from those produced during the Christmas holiday, for example, just by altering the font. Brands are sometimes identifiable by fonts.

Sans serif fonts, like Arial and Helvetica, are defined by what they don’t have: those “wings” and “feet.” They have cleaner lines and are considered best for titles and shorter text.

It’s not all about the message. The choice of font affects how people respond to written text, and new studies show how some typefaces elicit emotional responses in election campaigns or poetry.