My Response to Errol Morris's Typography Experiment

I definitely had some concerns reading Errol Morris’s interview with FastCompany.com. Even before reading the criticism by Stephen Coles, I found it a bit annoying that Morris couldn’t offer up any reasoning as to why he chose the typefaces he did. He claimed that he didn’t know how it would play out, but I feel like he most likely predicted that Comic Sans would not perform well in this test. I agree with Coles when he said that the only competition to Baskerville in those six typefaces was Georgia and Helvetica. His book, Pentagram Papers 44: Hear, All Ye People; Hearken, O Earth!, is gorgeous; however, it should not claim that Baskerville is the “most trustworthy typeface” when he only tested a mere six fonts to begin with. That just feels unethical on so many levels especially because he admits in his interview: "There are a lot of reasons in any social science or psychology experiment why it might misrepresent some underlying reality. Do I think I’ve proven anything, that I can stamp a big Q.E.D. on this experiment? No, I don’t think that. I do think, however, that it was a worthwhile experiment, and that the results are meaningful, quote-unquote". 

I appreciate that he recognizes this, but the content of his book seems to state otherwise. I also found it comedic that Coles points out that Morris says that he will now write all his manuscripts in Baskerville instead of Bembo (which he used to write them in) even though he didn’t even test Bembo with the New York Times readers. Personally, I think that the experiment should have been done with at least 10 fonts that would’ve been taken more seriously alongside fonts like Baskerville.