Recently pondering the formatting of my resume and scrolling through articles about which font is the best, I discovered what can only be described as an underworld Type War.
My resume has gone from Cambria, to Arial, to Times New Roman, to Helvetica, until I finally conceded and clicked ‘Cambria’ once more. But what’s the big deal? Should you be worried about the font on your folio? Or are such debates unnecessary?
It turns out there is a reason behind this font selection discussion, and it’s all psychological. Apparently serif fonts are more persuasive (so these could be the font of choice for cover letters and essays), while their cousins sans serif are the most prevalent fonts for displaying text on computer screens… yet Arial has been dubbed ‘the worst font on the planet’, obviously by those from Team Times New Roman.
One website I read listed Comic Sans and the London Olympics font some of the worst types out there.
And don’t get me started on the debate about styles. Underlining? Antiquated and distracting. Italic? Too feminine. Bold? Aggressive. But you need to distinguish your headings somehow. Did you know that in Arabic, it is traditional to use overlines to emphasise text? Oh, it’s a given you wouldn’t use strikethrough.
But after all of this typographical war of words, it’s really what’s on the inside (of your CV or assignment) that counts.
Font choice largely comes down to personal preference, and it probably won’t be to the detriment of your academic results or career, provided that it’s easy to read and not Word Art, Wingdings, or Curlz MT…
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