A font farewell to taste

Katie Rosseinsky explores the rise and rise of the inescapable ‘live, laugh, love’ font that’s cropping up everywhere from cheesy homeware designs to hen party and wedding invites

- Katie Rosseinsky

Personalised prosecco cups for a hen party, resplendent in rose gold. A wedding seating chart that blithely informs you that you've been placed next to the bride’s cousin’s weird best mate. Bits of “rustic” signage emblazoned with word-salad slogans screaming that it’s always “wine o’clock” somewhere. What unites all of these disparate objects? They’re all covered in the calligraphy-style scrawl of a certain ubiquitous typeface. It’s swishy, it’s swirly and it’s coming to a celebration near you.

Attended a baby shower or hen do at any point in the past decade? If so, you’ll probably be all too familiar with the sweeping brushstrokes of this particular style of font, which softens the contours of the most angular-looking consonants and adds a sense of homespun charm to the most passive-aggressive of instructions. “It’s that casual, handwritten-style script font,” says Vaishali Shah, founder of design agency Creative-ID and wedding stationersAnaya Cards.“Breezy, a little boho, and meant to feel personal, even if, ironically, it’s become the complete opposite of that.”

It has taken over wedding season, in particular, with all the speed and persistence of a particularly virulent form of Japanese knotweed, cropping up on invites, menus, name cards and banners. Just seeing the words “Happily Ever After” written in this script is enough to throw me into a cold, clammy panic. Did I book the correct regional Travelodge for the correct Bank Holiday weekend? Did I ever respond to that in-depth survey about fancy-dress options, sent round by a school friend’s maid of honour?