My Reaction To Certain Letters In Typography

I am writing about a personal reaction of mine to the way a letter is formed in a particular typeface.

I wonder whether my reaction is typical or whether it is just my personal reaction that is particular to me.

The Hypatia Typeface
According to Wikepedia, Hypatia was a ancient Greek mathematician who lived in Egypt and who was killed by a mob who falsely accused her of fomenting religious turmoil. Her name means ‘the highest’ or ‘the supreme’.

The derivation of the name of a typeface from something meaning ‘the supreme’ would be enough to put me off the typeface even before I had seen it.

As it happens though, I saw the typeface before I knew from whence the name originated.

By and large I like the Hypatia typeface.

So I decided to use it for the header image for Photograph Works.

However, as soon as I saw the capital ‘W’ – I inwardly revolted against using it. Overall though the typeface is nice so I decided to use it for a couple of days to see whether my initial feeling would abate.

But I dislike the capital ‘W’ so much that I decided to take it down this morning. That capital ‘W’ seems very militaristic and it grates with me whenever I see it.

Hypatia Letter W

I have made a copy of the image and put it here, and just in case there is any confusion, the red marking around the image below indicates the word with the ‘W’ that I don’t like.

So for the moment I have reverted to Helvetica Neue, which is the upper typeface in the image.

The bottom line for me is that I would be put off a product if I were to see it advertised using the Hypatia ‘W’.

Update June 30
I have changed the header to the ‘Merge’ typeface – available free from FontSquirrel.

Tagged as: advertising, font, Helvetica Neue, Hypatia, typeface