Chapter 6 : The typographic sensorium : a cross-modal reading of letterforms

Abstract

Anyone living in a post-industrial society consumes and interacts with typography daily, albeit often unconsciously. For many of us, typography primarily is a linguistic or lexical tool; a vehicle by which we can express the content of language – ‘a carrier of words’. Be it on signage, billboards, packaging, a website or digital interface, wayfinding systems or as ink marks on the pages of a book or Kindle, we often gauge the usefulness of a typeface3 in terms of the degree to which it makes written content legible.