In school, it was rigorously drilled into me that I should always type in Times New Roman; no other font was acceptable. This is was largely because of the font’s readability and our teacher’s frustration at students who loved seeing how strange a font they could get away with. But some research shows that reading an “ugly font” like Comic Sans or Monotype Corsiva might actually improve comprehension.
Tim Harford, author of Messy: How to be Creative and Resilient In a Tidy-Minded World, explained to , “When you get something in these fonts — it’s ugly, difficult to read, and it attracts your attention. When you have your attention, then you can actually start trying to understand what it says.”
These conclusions are derived from an experiment in which some classes of students were given handouts in easy-to-read fonts, like Times New Roman or Helvetica, while others were given difficult-to-read or “ugly” fonts, like Comic Sans. At the end of the year, the students who were given the ugly fonts did better in their exams across a variety of subject areas.
So, you might be able to use those ugly fonts to your advantage!
You can find out more in the video above.
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