Have you ever felt haunted by a piece of design or writing with creepy fonts?
Maybe you read it in a Halloween poster, or on a horror movie title that triggers a nightmare after you watched it.
Just like nightmares, the visual from the movie and its poster felt irrational and frightening. Yet, somehow they leave you lasting impressions. They linger in your mind.
You might wonder how creepy fonts, horror themed pieces of art, could leave such an impression on you. The design not only looks scary, but also feels scary. It somehow attracts you as an audience into a certain mood, emotion, and psychological space.
Let’s take a look at how fonts make such a powerful design element.
Psychology suggests that fonts carry meaning. Hence, typeface could affect audiences’ reaction. How people perceive the meaning of fonts depends on the cultural associations, historical usage, and the visual characteristics of the typeface itself.
Fonts help in connotating the message the visual art tries to convey. They influence the mood, the vibe and emotional perceptions.
Furthermore, these emotional reactions and perceptions show how fonts are such an important tool for branding and marketing. The way the fonts displayed alongside the graphic image carries the intended message.
Fonts supports the design in communicating the message. Applying the right fonts plays a crucial role for aligning the message with the intended audience’s responses.
For instance, in horror movie posters or halloween decorations. The use of creepy vibe fonts insinuates the spooky and creepy feeling. That is what the creator desired – to make you feel the creepy vibe that stays in your mind.
Who would expect that the word ‘creepy’ would be in the same sentence with therapy? What an unexpected twist.
The fact is, pieces of art, even horror themed ones, could be a form of therapy.
In the field of psychology, there is a method known as art therapy, in which you can express your deepest emotion through music, body movement, drawing, and painting.
The advancement of technology in this era allows new innovation of art therapy through graphic design.
Research and practitioners provide proof of the benefits of graphic design as art therapy. They include the improvement of emotional wellbeing and overall positive mental health condition.
Graphic design facilitates self-expression and emotional processing, just like drawing does. It allows people to dive into their feelings and emotions through visual storytelling.
Integration of graphic design into art therapy improves the therapeutic experience. This innovation of art therapy offers a diversity of ways of connecting with their inner selves which helps them heal.
Visualizing your nightmare through graphic design—surprisingly—counts. You can explore fonts that look broken, raw, twisted, or tense becomes a form of emotional release. There, you got not only a design, but also a reflection.
Now, let’s get to know how to express nightmares and creepy feelings into graphic design.
Research shows that art therapy utilizes graphic design elements to help individuals express their feelings and experiences. These elements translated the emotions and feelings the designer intended it to have, which were rooted in their own emotions.
Fonts are part of the elements that convey the horror vibe in a design. The vibe that eventually would stay in your mind. Creepy fonts complement other elements such as; color, shape, and imagery.
Image represents the depiction of situation and emotion you could not convey verbally. It talks to you without words, yet you can listen. Therefore the image of horror would haunt you.
The picture you draw or design, consists of a composition of shape, line, and color. The arrangement of those elements builds the story and emotions being delivered to audiences.
The sight of how the elements are placed leaves an impression in audiences’ hearts.
Before becoming a full image, the design might start from drawing shapes. Those shapes will make the design to have a form to be read by audiences.
Color holds meaning. It describes what emotional state you are in, expresses emotions, and feelings. It enriches the imagery through which the message regarding your feelings or emotions are conveyed.
This is where the message is said.
Fonts and typography hold an important role in representing your emotions. The typeface used in graphic design or drawing could also affect your emotional perception. This includes the creepy fonts that deliver the feeling of horror in a design.
So, there are a lot of elements that become your medium to express a nightmare like the one in a horror movie or a halloween event poster.
That design is not only there to be seen, but also to be felt. The vibe got into your eyes, then reflected in the frightened look and unsettling feeling.
The image of something horror and creepy tells you something to feel. Through the objects such as; skull, unused and rotten building, and bats.
It is, then, complemented with dark and desaturated color to emphasize the feel of horror. They are often pictured in the shade of black, red, white, and maybe dimmed orange.
To top it all, there is a verbal message typed in creepy fonts. It is not just a decoration. It conveys a message, it carries a meaning.
That being said, these fonts are visual language tools who want to give a touch of horror. They are supposed to make you scary, to get you emotionally triggered.
Fonts bring a certain weight in design. They can be both whispering and screaming. They pull you into a world of horror and nightmares where things don’t seem normal, they don’t feel quite right.
When you want to create a story, whether it is for your brand or creative work, that does not feel comfortable but always memorable, creepy fonts are the ones to go. They allow you to be bold, to get weird, and bring a twisted story.
So, are you ready to create something strange and intense?
If yes, worry not about where to find creepy fonts to deliver your brand’s message. Here in Hansco Studio, there is a font called Night Mare that you can utilize as a tool to visually tell a scary, creepy story.
