The assistant professor of communication design examined how typefaces operate as political cues rather than neutral design elements.
Shannon Zenner, assistant professor of communication design, is a co-author of a newly published peer-reviewed study exploring how Americans attach political meaning to typography 鈥撀爎evealing that fonts themselves can function as markers of affective polarization. The article appears in the December 2025 issue of Visual Communication Quarterly, a quarterly academic journal.
Titled 鈥溾 the study is co-authored by Katherine Haenschen of Virginia Tech, Zenner, and Jessica R. Collier of Purdue University. Through a series of survey experiments, the researchers examine how people interpret typefaces as political signals rather than neutral design choices. 鈥淔onts have become another site where affective polarization shows up,鈥 Zenner said. 鈥淧eople are not just polarized about parties and candidates, but also about visual design choices that they interpret as political signals.鈥
The research finds that when individuals like a typeface, they are more likely to perceive it as sharing their political views. When they dislike a typeface, they tend to associate it with the political out-group. These effects are especially strong among people with more intense partisan identities.
Those perceptions are reinforced by consistent partisan patterns in typographic preference. This study builds on previous research (Haenschen & Tamul, 2019), which found that Republicans are more likely to gravitate toward serif typefaces, while Democrats more often prefer sans serif 鈥撀爌references that function as subtle but meaningful political cues.
Taken together, these findings demonstrate that typography plays a role in shaping impressions of credibility, professionalism and ideological tone 鈥 often before audiences engage with the written message itself. 鈥淭ypography is not neutral,鈥 Zenner said. 鈥淚t shapes perceptions before people read the content.鈥 The findings extend earlier work on political branding and design, situating typography within broader conversations about polarization and visual communication.
Zenner鈥檚 expertise was recently featured in an interview with Dezeen, which published a on the U.S. State Department鈥檚 decision to abandon Calibri and return to Times New Roman as its official typeface. In the piece, Zenner discussed how design decisions in government communication can become politicized, particularly when accessibility is involved. She noted that the framing of Calibri as a 鈥渨asteful DEIA program鈥 illustrates how even typographic choices can be pulled into partisan narratives 鈥撀燼 real-world example that mirrors the study鈥檚 findings on how fonts operate as political signals.