Let the Words Do It

Martin Fowler writes about the practice of making “heavy use of bold font weights, in an attempt to emphasise what the writers think is important”. He argues it is self-defeating. [T]he more a writer uses typographical emphasis, the less power it has, quickly reaching the point where it loses all its benefits. I completely agree with this sentiment. Yet this applies not just to technical and business writing, as Martin says, but also to personal writing. There was a time when my posts were full of italics and bold texts. I felt it was important to highlight to the reader the parts of my prose that mattered to me. It was only through writing and reading more that I realised it was an artificial and crude way to guide the reader. More than helping the reader, I was making their experience painful. The words matter. Their framing matters. Style does not. Reply to this post