Can album cover fonts change how you hear the music?
In a previous blog, I discussed how the album cover could be thought of as “paratext” to the music on the album. The idea of paratext comes from literary studies; it’s a term that refers to the elements outside the main text, like a preface, title, or even other publishing considerations like typeface and binding. Like literary paratexts, the album cover may not be the “main event,” so to speak, but it does significantly impact how you perceive and interpret the music.
Photo by Kristian Strand
A newly published psychological study tested specifically how the typeface on album covers affects expectations about and perceptions of the music. In particular, the authors narrowed in on how curvy or angular a typeface was (i.e., its curvilinearity). In the study, they created faux CD album covers with different typefaces to test how it affected listeners’ expectations of the music, and how it affected their interpretation of the music after they heard it.
The authors note that previous studies have suggested that listeners have visual and tactile associations with different kinds of sounds:
Higher-pitched sounds tend to be associated with smaller, more angular shapes whereas lower-pitched sounds are associated with larger, rounder shapes.... Harsh timbres (such as the sound of crashing cymbals) corresponded with angular shapes while softer timbres (such as the sounds of a piano) corresponded with rounder shapes. Curvilinearity is also associated with texture—round shapes are associated with smoothness and angular shapes are associated with roughness. There is also evidence that round shapes are associated with low emotional arousal words and words that invoke feelings of safety… while angular shapes are associated with high arousal words and words that invoke feelings of danger.
Photo by Danica Tanjutco
This study found that the typeface curvilinearity affected what kind music people expected to hear on the album. According to the study, listeners expected to hear music that was “more angular, masculine, fast, rough, happy, evil, violent, exciting, and active when the typeface on the faux CD album cover was angular compared with when it was round. Conversely, participants expected the music to sound more round, feminine, slow, smooth, sad, good, gentle, calm, and passive when the typeface was round than when it was angular.” After people actually heard the music, the typeface also had affected how people perceived the sounds they heard. This effect was limited, however. Music that was particularly “angular” overrode the expectation of “roundness” from a curvy font.
Photo by Aditya Chinchure
What fascinates me about this study is not so much the question of whether or not we can “prove” that typeface changes our perception of music. Instead, I am interested in the ways this study highlights how much of the language around visual and sonic aesthetics is shared. We all have some sense of what we mean by a “rough” sound or a “smooth” sound, for instance, even though these are words typically applied to tactile sensations. What does it mean for music to sound “angular” or “curvy”? Even though these are visual descriptors, we can intuit what they mean in terms of musical experience. In fact, it can be difficult to talk about qualities of sound without referencing other sensory experiences. Even the idea of “high” and “low” pitches is a spatial metaphor.
This cross-pollination of language points to a kind of everyday synesthesia—an experience that crosses sensory modalities. Even though we’ve been taught to think of sensory experience as divided into “the five senses,” our language reveals that it’s not so cut and dry. Our experience of music is visual and tactile, even when we think of it as purely sonic.
Do you think the conclusions of the study hold true for you? Below are a couple of examples from newly released album covers, one featuring a more angular font, the other a more curvy font (in my estimation). I’ve included a table of the fonts used in the study, with their round vs. angular ratings.
Table from: Venkatesan, T., Wang, Q. J., & Spence, C. (2020, August 27). Does the Typeface on Album Cover Influence Expectations and Perception of Music?. Psychology of Aesthetics, Creativity, and the Arts. Advance online publication. http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/aca0000330
Text on the cover of AC/DC’s new album POWER UP looks similar to the “Graveblade” typeface from the chart above. (This is, of course, their widely recognized band logo, so you may already have some associations with it.) Does the font give you the expectation that this music will sound active, happy, excited, masculine, harsh, cruel, furious, agitated, and/or violent?
How about the new album from RAYE, Euphoric Sad Songs? The font of the title seems most similar to the MadreScript typeface in the chart from the study, which was rated to be relatively “curvy.” Do you expect this music to sound passive, calm, feminine, weak, lazy, and/or gentle?
