Abstract.A wide variety of type‐faces have now become available for books and journals. It therefore seemed desirable to investigate (A) the legibility and (B) the aesthetic merits of those in more frequent use.(A)Using tests of speed and comprehension, we have studied the influence of type‐face, boldness, size, interlinear spacing, length of line, and width of margin on legibility both with children and with adults. The results have furnished provisional norms for children's reading books and for scientific journals such as the present.(B)Factorial methods, supplemented by an analysis of introspections, appear to yield a classification of both readers and type faces based on aesthetic preference; and the data incidentally obtained throw considerable light on the reasons for such preferen