From Arial to Wide Latin

"We see Times New Roman in the newspaper, Verdana on our e-mail, and Comic Sans is the popular choice for a party invitation. We instantly recognise the fonts used by the world's biggest brands.

As computers have made thousands of fonts available to us, designers, newspaper editors and advertisers have used type to manipulate the choices we make - from the products we buy to the music we listen to.

Horror writer James Herbert has sold 50 million copies of his books. One of his early novels was pulped and reprinted - at his request - because it was not in the font he had asked for.

Ian Peacock explores how the fonts we choose are sending secret subliminal messages about who we are. The fonts we dress our words in are arguably as much of a fashion statement as the clothes we wear."

Audio presentation...