Ransom note effect

Common card · No. 490605

In typography, the ransom note effect is the result of using an excessive number of juxtaposed typefaces. It takes its name from the appearance of a stereotypical ransom note or poison pen letter, with the message formed from words or letters cut randomly from a magazine or a newspaper in order to avoid using recognizable handwriting. The term is also used in a pejorative manner to describe poor typesetting or layout created by an untrained Web developer or desktop publishing user. The software industry discovered that the drawback to placing "professional publishing tools" in the hands of "people with no graphic design" training or education was that "all too often users mixed all sorts of things together, just because they could". However, the problem has long been recognized in classical typography and examples of such layouts can be found in handbills from the 18th and 19th centuries. Early versions of Macintosh system software, up through System 7, included a bitmapped font called...

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