Predicting the appropriateness of a typeface on the basis of its multi-modal features

It is proposed that the appropriateness of a typeface is partly determined by the extent to which it shares multi-modal features with the concept that it represents. Exploring a number of professions as the concepts to be represented, we offer evidence to support this hypothesis. We demonstrate that n on-specialists discriminate a variety of display typefaces and professions in terms of a common set of multimodal features. In addition, on the basis of the extent to which each typeface shares multi-modal features with each profession, we successfully predict the judged appropriateness of various typefaces to represent each profession.