WHAT ARE THE CULTURAL IMPLICATIONS OF SERIFS? Despite the practical reasons for or against serifs (legibility or time to load documents), it seems that it is hard to resist the temptation to analyze the broad cultural implications of the presence or absence of serifs. History versus modernity , for example. Jack Self argues that there is a movement away from serifs which is part of a broad movement in design in the years after the financial events of 2007. After the global financial crisis, “the creative professions began to eliminate unnecessary ornament and complexity in favour of a practically puritan asceticism….This was just as true for fashion, art and architecture as it was for graphic design or typography….”
Serif can be viewed as ornaments on letters. A movement against serifs is a movement against ornament.