Week 4 - Lesson 2 Word Connotations

For this assignment, I decided to go with the word "Sorry," because I figured that it could be applied in different contexts and perceived in different ways.

The fonts that I chose are Impact, Georgia, Courier New, and Verdana.

Impact gives off a much more sturdy and strong emotion behind any word, so naturally, the word in this case also appears to have more volume. It appears unwavering, but at the same time, seems to lose some of its sense of sympathy.

Georgia perhaps seems to work best for this word out of all of the other web-safe fonts. Because some serif fonts are considered "older" and more traditional in comparison to contemporary sans-serifs, it gives the word itself more of a classic or cliche feeling. It looks more formal than a san-serif and therefore can seem more sympathetic.

Courier New is a monospace font, and I wanted it to appear more as an automated message, similar to what a person might see on a basic error page or when a system error dialog box appears on older systems. It lacks sympathy most out of all of the pages because of its robotic connotation. I made the size smaller to simulate the typical font-size in a coding program.

Verdana, another font like Georgia that was created for the web, was interesting because it is a sans-serif. In all lowercase letters, it appeared convincing in terms of sympathy and emotion, but still did not seem as convincing as Georgia. Having it in all caps brings out a heightened feeling of emotion, as if a person were shouting it rather than saying it. The line-through was added, because it gives an insincerity to the word. The word itself in all caps already appears slightly insincere, because it appears more out of anger or frustration than of sympathy and understanding.

Above is the code that I used for the html and css.

Of all of the examples that I tried, some that stuck out to me were Lobster, Reenie Beanie, and Comic Sans (not pictured).

Lobster was interesting, because it gave the word a sincere connotation and formality, much more formal than Georgia. It is a decent looking script font, although I do not think it works as well with the word "sorry" as a different script font would.

Reenie Beanie was interesting because it looked more like natural handwriting, and because of there, reflects a sincerity expressive on a more personal basis than many of the geometric fonts. At the same time, it then lacks formality, which depending on the reason for the apology, could have a major impact on how the apology is perceived.

Comic Sans was also interesting, because it was similar to Reenie Beanie with the exception that it is a much uglier font. Because of how unvaried Comic Sans is terms of its stroke width, the words appear more processed. There is an inconsistency between trying to achieve authenticity of natural handwriting and a processed, refined, font. Because of that, it lacks depth of emotion and makes the word "sorry" appear also processed and fake.