The Best and Worst Fonts For Email From Netiquette IQ

Do you know what font you used when you sent your last email? Do you think it was the best you could use? How about your last resume? If the resume was rejected (or accepted) do you feel any part of the outcome was due to a typeface you used?

Recently, I have been doing quite a bit of research (for my forthcoming book) regarding the use of fonts in email. The goal here has been to ascertain if any typefaces can influence someone opening, reading or finishing an email. The more I have examined this, the more I am convinced that the specific font an email sender (or resume writer) uses definitely has an effect. The effect can either be positive or negative. 

Fonts exist for a reason or their use would diminish. Essentially, what I have concluded is based on numerous studies. There are fonts, primarily serif, which are best suited for readability and others, primarily sans serif, which are best for legibility. 


In short readability applies to books, magazines, and long documents. Legibility fonts are used for shortened documents, logos, advertisements or headlines. These type of fonts have less "clutter" or detail and allow the recipient or reader to more quickly focus or find intended words or phrases. So, when you compose an email or write a resume you are best to use a legibility font.

After this research, I compiled the matrix below to assist my readers to optimize their emails to be opened  more often and read. See which work for you. 

By the way, this blog is written primarily in Arial!

	Best (San Serif)	Worst (Serif)
10 Point	Arial Verdana Trebuchet Garamond	Times New Roman Georgia Century
12 Point	Arial Helvetica Trebuchet Courier (Monospace)	Times New Roman Century Palatino Georgia

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In addition to this blog, I maintain a radio show on BlogtalkRadio  and an online newsletter via paper.li.I have established Netiquette discussion groups with Linkedin and  Yahoo.  I am also a member of the International Business Etiquette and Protocol Group and Minding Manners among others. I regularly consult for the Gerson Lehrman Group, a worldwide network of subject matter experts and I have been contributing to the blogs Everything Email and emailmonday . My work has appeared in numerous publications and I have presented to groups such as The Breakfast Club of NJ and  PSG of Mercer County, NJ.

I am the president of Tabula Rosa Systems, a “best of breed” reseller of products for communications, email, network management software, security products and professional services.  Also, I am the president of Netiquette IQ. We are currently developing an email IQ rating system, Netiquette IQ, which promotes the fundamentals outlined in my book.

Over the past twenty-five years, I have enjoyed a dynamic and successful career and have attained an extensive background in IT and electronic communications by selling and marketing within the information technology marketplace. Anyone who would like to review the book and have it posted on my blog or website, please contact me paul@netiquetteiq.com.