Just for people like me: A multimodal interpretative phenomenological analysis of font consumption.

Abstract

Purpose/research questions. The purpose of this study is to understand more fully individuals’ conscious and unconscious lived experiences with font consumption. More specifically, this research asks how relationships with mundane products like typefaces can be described analytically and how individuals consume fonts to construct their identities. Design/methodology/approach. The study employs an inductive, multimethod qualitative research design. It uses an interpretative phenomenological approach (IPA) (Smith, Flowers, & Larkin, 2009) to generate and analyse 48 data sets from 16 diverse typeface users, who were purposefully recruited to reflect the increasingly diverse font user. Data comprise visual (collage), written (narrative) and verbal (interview) texts. Results. Consumers form (parasocial) relationships with typefaces that are shaped by their degree of ‘connoisseurship’. This is a new temporally dynamic and multi-layered concept comprising five facets: Apprehending, involvement, hunting and gathering, knowing, and gatekeeping. Ultimately, the study suggests that fonts must be apprehended as commodities in their own right to become part of identity construction processes and to facilitate the creation of person-object relationships. Originality/value. This study makes several theoretical and methodological contributions. First, it reconceptualizes connoisseurship by employing a rhetoric device and offers an integrated model of the construct. Second, it extends marketing literature on consumer-object and parasocial relationships by proposing a connoisseurship trajectories framework. Third, it enriches methodological literature by introducing the collage construction method in multimodal IPA research. Practical implications. The need for identifying dynamic segments in the typeface market, establishing competitive positioning and co-creating value are highlighted. Future research. This study encourages further research that, for example, applies the connoisseurship trajectories framework to other contexts like polymorphic person-object relationships or explores font consumption from alternative perspectives (e.g. brand and sales managers).