Can the Font of a Contract Avoid Redlines?
A few years ago, I had to review a contract that was in Garamond font.
I still remember the specific contract. Not because of deal itself or any particular clause.
But because of a weird gut feeling I had when reviewing it.
I felt as though I shouldn't redline it.
At the time, I had a weird sense that it was something about the font.
If you've never seen a contract in Garamond, pull up a document and change the font to Garamond.
It looks elegant.
And I think that's why I had some gut resistance to redlining it.
It looked too elegant to redline.
Like redlining would ruin it.
Now, I still had edits, so I did make some redlines. But I always wondered if the font influenced the redlines I made (or didn't make).
Fast forward to today, and I just read about how fonts can influence behavior.
They did a study where they gave 2 groups of people the exact same instructions. Something like "tuck your chin into your chest and then lift your head up as high as possible. Repeat 10 times."
One group got the instructions in Arial font, which is easy to read.
The other group go the same instructions in a cursive font, which is harder to read.
Even though both groups got the same instructions, the group that had the easier-to-read instructions finished the task actual faster than the group with the harder-to-read instructions.
According to a psychologist, we try to sense whether a task is easy or hard, but we don't care where that sense comes from.
In the study, people misattributed the easiness or difficulty of the actual task to the font!
If the font was easy to read, they assumed the task would be easy. And vice versa.
I think this is what happened with the Garamond contract.
The font is elegant, so the contract looked "polished" and "final."
Other fonts don't look as "polished" - they look "unfinished."
If a contract looks "unfinished," that means we're still reviewing, negotiating, and redlining. But if a contract looks "final," that means we're done redlining.
And the neat thing is that a contract's FONT may be able to influence whether we think the contract is "final."
So here's what I'm curious about: can a contract's FONT influence how it is redlined?
Can a contract's FONT reduce redlines?
And if so, is Garamond the best font to use?
What do you think?
I still remember the specific contract. Not because of deal itself or any particular clause.
But because of a weird gut feeling I had when reviewing it.
I felt as though I shouldn't redline it.
At the time, I had a weird sense that it was something about the font.
If you've never seen a contract in Garamond, pull up a document and change the font to Garamond.
It looks elegant.
And I think that's why I had some gut resistance to redlining it.
It looked too elegant to redline.
Like redlining would ruin it.
Now, I still had edits, so I did make some redlines. But I always wondered if the font influenced the redlines I made (or didn't make).
Fast forward to today, and I just read about how fonts can influence behavior.
They did a study where they gave 2 groups of people the exact same instructions. Something like "tuck your chin into your chest and then lift your head up as high as possible. Repeat 10 times."
One group got the instructions in Arial font, which is easy to read.
The other group go the same instructions in a cursive font, which is harder to read.
Even though both groups got the same instructions, the group that had the easier-to-read instructions finished the task actual faster than the group with the harder-to-read instructions.
According to a psychologist, we try to sense whether a task is easy or hard, but we don't care where that sense comes from.
In the study, people misattributed the easiness or difficulty of the actual task to the font!
If the font was easy to read, they assumed the task would be easy. And vice versa.
I think this is what happened with the Garamond contract.
The font is elegant, so the contract looked "polished" and "final."
Other fonts don't look as "polished" - they look "unfinished."
If a contract looks "unfinished," that means we're still reviewing, negotiating, and redlining. But if a contract looks "final," that means we're done redlining.
And the neat thing is that a contract's FONT may be able to influence whether we think the contract is "final."
So here's what I'm curious about: can a contract's FONT influence how it is redlined?
Can a contract's FONT reduce redlines?
And if so, is Garamond the best font to use?
What do you think?