Melbourne, AU — In recent weeks, a group of researchers, behavioral scientists and typographic design specialists from down under have given the world an unforgettable new tool: a new font called Sans Forgetica. It’s a typeface created with the intent of driving memory and retention, and according to a study of hundreds of Australian university students, its mere use drove higher recall versus traditional fonts including Arial.
According to RMIT, the Australian university behind the project,
“Sans Forgetica is a font designed using the principles of cognitive psychology to help you to better remember your study notes…Sans Forgetica is more difficult to read than most typefaces – and that’s by design. The 'desirable difficulty' you experience when reading information formatted in Sans Forgetica prompts your brain to engage in deeper processing.”
Visually it features a combination of a leftward slant, odd breaks in line continuity and a heavy typeset. Psychologically it disrupts ingrained pathways to drive deeper retention.
RMIT has been kind enough to make the font free to download for Mac or PC, plus it’s available as a chrome extension those of us doing more consumption than creation.
Why This Matters—
In every discipline and industry, it’s not uncommon to fall prey to siloed thinking. Marketing is no exception—we’re always looking for strong visuals to capture attention and engaging messages to drive recall, but could developments like Sans Forgetica strike a perfect balance between the two? Its arresting visual style grabs the eye, and the early studies point to a marked improvement in message recall when compared to typical copy. Where could your brand benefit from a bit more attention plus retention?
