4.2 Aesthetic Meaning
Aesthetics, the study or philosophy of beauty and people’s responses to it, is primarily one of theory. This definition is not very refined, but its simplicity suits its purpose for this discussion. Like association, it refers to feeling, but there is a fundamental difference. Whereas association concerns an impression on the reader, aesthetics concerns a preference he has. It need not be of practical concern, except to please the reader. The drop capital, for instance, the enlarged first letter of a paragraph that extends from the first line down into the text, seems to have been introduced as an enhancing feature, not because there was a need for it. Being a field of intricacies, aesthetics can hardly be done full credit in this review, so only a few statements to charactarize the field will be made here.

Consider an assignment to design an advertisement for a brand of snowboard. The target group typically values the distinct expression of attitude and has specific tastes with regard to clothing and music. When the advertiser would like to express the product’s reliability, he could use a ‘reliable’ typeface. However, not all ‘reliable’ typefaces would appeal to this target group. Appropriateness is not only defined by the associated personality, but also by the aesthetic preferences of readers. Perhaps the two factors are interrelated. It could well be that the reader perceives the personality of type and then attributes some degree of beauty to it. On the other hand, it might be that beauty of form and personality are perceived totally separately. Whichever is true, the hypothetical case demonstrates that (sub)culture is an important determinant of aesthetic appreciation.

Although experimental aesthetics may provide some leads for the experimental study of the beauty of typeface, no research has been done on typefaces proper. Appendix C provides a list of literature on aesthetics.

In conclusion, one could adopt a readercentered approach with regard to aesthetics in the same way this is done for association. This would result in similar investigations, in which connotative dimensions would be replaced by dimensions of aesthetic appreciation such as ‘pretty/homely’. Perhaps survey research on the product preferences of target groups currently undertaken in advertising could be extended to inquiry on preference of type or aesthetic dimensions.