One of the best things that Adobe ever did is to bundle fonts with the Adobe Creative Suite. I’ve been known to spend some time on free font sites, and now with what used to be called Typekit bundled, even more time looking for just the right font for a particular syllabus. Why do I spend so much time on such things?
- My colleagues in graphic design have long argued that typography matters in terms of how we react to a message. There was even a documentary on Helvetica, the typeface. I’ll admit that I too try to set a mood with the syllabus. A really good book that doesn’t just apply to the legal profession is Typography for Lawyers, 2nd edition.
If you were to look at some of my syllabi really closely, you’d find that I even use handwriting fonts in the syllabus as well. It’s a way for me to communicate thoughts such as, “Hey! Let me let you behind the curtain for a moment to tell you what your professor really thinks.” I also use handwriting fonts now for my examples (What do I want you to do? Here you go…). If anything, good fonts break up the visual monotony that syllabi tend to be. I know. I have been one of those “Here’s 17 pages of Times New Roman” kind of professors. I now cringe at some of my past syllabi. - The easier it is for students to find something, the more likely it is that they’ll use the syllabus in the way it’s intended. After all, a syllabus is a continual reference document; it’s something that should be referred to more than just the first day of the semester. If a student can find what they need, that means fewer repetitive questions for me, and more time that I can spend on the really important stuff that I teach.
- When you teach multiple classes and sections, sometimes it’s easy to pull up the wrong syllabus in the middle of class. When I see the font I’ve chosen on page 1, I know instantly what class it is and what semester I’m teaching it.