Why Serifs are Important: the Perception of Small Print

Abstract

The use of serif type styles has continued to dominate printing since the introduction of sans-serif type a century and a half ago. Several theories are considered to account for the continued popularity of the older typefaces. It is suggested that the neurological structure of the human visual system benefits from serifs in the preservation of the main features of letters during neural processing. A computer simulation of visual processing supports this theory, and suggestions are made concerning the function of serifs in letters of different sizes.