Most people wouldnt pick up on these nuances, but Carlos Velasco does. A professor of marketing at the BI Norwegian Business School in Oslo, he has devoted years to studying how seemingly inconsequential features of packaginglike color, typeface, and soundcan recalibrate what we taste. Hes discovered that angular, asymmetrical fonts make us perceive foods as sour, while we tie round, symmetrical writing to sweetness. That cloud-like Airheads lettering? To your brain, its positively saccharine.If theres a case in which typeface clearly contributes to the taste, it is this one, Velasco says.
You can see this phenomenon all across the candy aisle: Reeses deploys fonts that look almost creamy. Starburst lettering seems to curl backward, like someone scrawled it across a sphere. On the flip side, companies selling sour candieslike Warheads or Brain Blasterzpackage their products with far more angularity. The writing on Brain Blasterz, a line of sour candies and candy sprays, looks claustrophobic, with sharp angles on the B andZ.
Candy companies, with their eccentric fonts and sharp flavors, offer a clear illustration of a broader shift in grocery stores. Over the last two decades, food and drink packaging has become far more scientificand companies have figured out how to use tiny details, like typeface, to guide what we taste.
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Explore the subliminal messaging on your Halloween candys label - The Counter
