After reading this article you'll definitely have a better idea not only for the project you're working on now but also for all future projects.
Decide which font to use is a very important part, sometimes almost essential in the creative process and this decision may even depend on the success or failure of an entire project.
The first step you need to go about choosing the right font is forming in your head clear and definite idea of what should be the reaction that you want to evoke in the reader or the customer who will interact with your text. This should be objective and should be your guide your entire process.
It all depends on the type of project.
Despite a big chunk of the font selection process is something extremely tied to subjective and personal choices of taste and mood to be transmitted, there are also objective component and more or less quantifiable, such as the degree of a character legibility and readability of a text.
Legibility and readability.
1. Legibility of a character
The legibility is something that has strictly to do with the graphical single typeface as the thickness, the presence or absence of kerning, spacing and line spacing.It is an objective characteristic and not tied to the personal tastes of a person so it is easy to define the readability of a character. For example a decorative fonts or handwriting has not a good readability because it is designed to be attractive at first glance, not in long texts. Instead, if you notice, the fonts used in books, newspapers or online articles are extremely easy to read.
In choosing the font you have to then decide what is the degree of legibility you need.
If you need a highly readable font consider these tips for good readability:
Choose fonts with letters from conventional forms, in fact all those fonts that have letters with strange and unusual, perhaps with a thousand decorations and twirls, although beautiful and useful to attract attention make precisely that, attention-grabbing! If you need to search legibility standard forms in the letters.
Choose typefaces with good spacing. The fonts whose letters are too stuck together create a very difficult and slow reading, are therefore to be avoided in this case.
2. Readability of a text
When we speak of readability of a text we speak of all those characteristics of shape, tracking, kerning, color and any other properties that cooperate to create an overall appearance which can be more or less "readable".In any case, the communication ( the message we want to convey) is first then comes style and appearance.
If your goal is to obtain a high readability of the text here are some valuable tips:
Choose fonts that exactly designed for use as you need.
Align text to the flag, and possibly on the left. Thus avoids text centered or justified, if you need them to be highly readable
Split into paragraphs, make neat text dividing everything into paragraphs. This not only improves the visual appearance of the first impact, but also makes clearer the message to be given by inserting whitespace (which are very important!) And that of "scheduled breaks" for the reader.
Use proper spacing. If your text is spread out over multiple lines you must ensure that the leading value is greater than the size of the font.
Adequacy of a font
For some areas, a font is more suitable than another. It is a question of appropriateness, something that you can learn from your personal experience with a font, or by analyzing the history and original purpose of the font.
1. Purpose of the project
To know the precise role for which a font was originally designed by its creator is definitely one of the best ways to know how to use it.One way to have as much information about the font is definitely the industry search on Google.
2. Personal Choices
My advice is to go easy on the "gut" decisions and try to do a bit of research, at least on the history and uses of the initial font, to understand how to interact with it.Make a search on the fonts used, as well as being a great way to constantly expand their knowledge, it is also a way to respond to any criticisms that you may be exchanged between customers or other designers at the stage of collecting feedback. In short, a response to the request to motivate the choice of the font with "Dunno, I liked it!" Is never very professional, right?
3. Aesthetic appearance
Another important factor affecting the adequacy of a character is undoubtedly the outward appearance, its aesthetics. And I do not mean to say "beautiful", "ugly", "like" or "I hate it." I refer to the fact that the font you choose will have to conform to the aesthetic expectations of the public with which the font will interact.One technique to figure out what could be the message conveyed by a font is to write the first words that come to mind watching it. Once written, ask yourself these words are consistent with the message that I have to send?
Practical tips for choosing the right font
OK, I've talked a lot about the theory behind the choice font, I explained what aspects make it a more or less readable and more or less suitable font to a project but now it's time to be pragmatic and get down to business.
Here you list a number of useful practical advice for choosing the right font, the most appropriate fonts for your project. These tips are the same used by the best designers in the world.
1. Watch what others have already done
Which is a kind advice I give in any field for anything. That does not mean copying! It means to analyze the market and understand what has worked in the past for similar projects to yours and get ideas and inspiration.There is no copyright on the font combinations, so if you see in a winning design why not re-use it?
2. Schedule a hierarchy
That is, trying to figure out how much content, how much text you have to write with the fonts you have to select and decide how many characters you need to write the text. For example, you decide that you need a font for headlines, one for captions and one for the descriptive texts. You just need a font that, through its weight variations or tilt allows you a satisfactory result, or you think it's better to select two or three (preferably no more than three) to ensure greater differentiation?Understand your needs and also decide the number and roughly the type of font used is a critical step that will allow you to proceed in a more orderly way to choose a font.
3. Use the font families
If you need to use more than one font, but you still need to order and to convey the message to be transmitted through a contain ambiguities "mood", the font families are then made for you.
There are even extended font families that include both serif versions and sans serif, or the squared versions and those rounded and so on.
You can also create you your own personal list of fonts that guaranteed you the best professional results and update it from time to time with the best "discoveries" in this area.
4. Make gradual experiments
Choosing the right font is an important process and not something to be solved in a few minutes hurriedly. Take your time and make small gradual changes. As an adjustment to a thickness or inclination, and from time to time observe the result to figure out what works and what does not.Try to make one change at a time to avoid losing you perfect combinations in a hurry to change.
5. Avoid cliches
Avoid those choices so trivial as to leave almost stunned.Simply try to avoid the obvious choices, learn from your mistakes and don't repeat yourself.
6. Break the rules!
Once you know the rules of design you can afford to break them.You understand thoroughly the rules described in this article allows you to figure out what rules you can break up and how. It is also a way to distinguish yourself and make your project unique and recognizable.
Obviously you choose font is a complicated process, but also extremely fun for those who perform this task with passion!
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