I thought the opposite -- the ligatures seem like they're supposed to make the company look fancy, but when combined with the photos of the founders I just felt creeped out.
I also immediately noticed the ligatures and found them disturbing too. I'm not sure I can explain why but I'll try.
It may be because the first and most prominent ligature is in the title... and the word "suck"
- ligatures are unusual, even in print, let alone on the web => they're distracting (I found myself chasing them on the page to see if they were also in the article -- turns out they're only used in some subtitles, but the rule isn't clear to me)
- ligatures are kind of "classy" (?), and the phrase "suck less" is very colloquial => the contrast is unpleasant (like seeing someone in a tuxedo, covered in mud)
Finally, the home page of wefunder is completely different, with basic sans used for copy (font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;) and 'ChunkFiveRoman' for titles (?)
In short, the typography seems to be a little all over the place (but that's just my opinion).
I agree with this - thanks a lot for the feedback.
We're going through the flow and experimenting with a lot of type choices, and your point about the tone really rings with me. I expect to put ChunkFive on the bench soon, to be replaced by something with a little less angst, though I expect it to still be a slab-serif. As far as Abril Display (what we're using for headings on these featured startup pages) is currently used, we could improve. I think the actual use of ligatures helps give a bowtie look, but it's not necessarily what we're looking to do. The tone of the brand going forward will be key for that decision. IMO Abril Text, being used for the body copy, is a good typeface for long format reading. Though however I try to justify it, we've got some serious typeface gloat happening, and we'll start to see them tightening up over the next few releases.
The ligatures aren't especially creepy, but they're still bad. It is very odd to use the blatant st and ck ligatures and not use f or t ligatures. And maybe it's the fact that you're using slab serifs? I haven't considered this before, but maybe slab serifs and ligatures just don't mix? Your ampersand is nice though!
The still from the first video is incredibly off-putting. It's an awkward smile for any website, but for a divorce website, with the caption "They put me on the stand" it seems very inappropriate. I realised seeing the photo later on that it was one of the founders, but from the image and caption alone there'd be no way to know that (people should read the copy text, sure, but many of them will see the image first.) The Founders & Co image is better, but it does make me think that a sparkle will appear on their teeth any moment now...
