Who Shot the Serif?

by Jade Stone

The data selected grew from an interest in comparing the use of serif and sans serif typefaces after reading a design article predicting a rise in the use of serif typefaces in 2019. I took the opportunity to use the 100 Archive to make my own analysis.

Who Shot the Serif? is an investigation into the use of serif versus sans serif typefaces in Irish design using archived projects from 2010 to 2018 as a basis. The most prevalent typeface in each project is included and displayed according to its form and weight.

The findings show that sans serif still dominates, but the detractors are starting to stand out. This is highlighted by creating an abstract display of the data. Each line represents one project. The ones who used a serif typeface are distinguished by their orange colour and horizontal to signify the slab of serif typefaces. The projects using a sans serif typeface are in white to allow the serifs to stand out.