Fonts You Do Not Want to Use!!

18 Mar 2010

Fonts You Do Not Want to Use!!

I do not mean to offend the font designers, but sometimes font designs go so far from the main purpose of font design and the usage of the font. The main purpose of using the font is to deliver text content to the user with the maximum readability. The font is one of the main and critical design units that is related to the most important part of the design, which is the content.

When you choose the fonts for your design or website, you have to consider some facts to provide user friendly design and content, here are some tips you have to consider when choosing the fonts for your design.

Readability

In simple words, readability means that to use easy to read fonts that are comfortable for the eye of the target user. Fonts with strange shapes of characters are hard to read especially when the are used on a small size. However, the traditional fonts commonly used fonts are recommended when choosing the font for the content, especiallywhen the content is large such as web pages. The Serif and Sans Serif are commonly used fonts for content, these font types include fonts such as the Arial, Times New Roman.

The Titles and headlines need to be distinguished from the content fonts. On the other hand, it needs to be more unified with content fonts and do not attract the user eyes from the main content. However, you can use special fonts for the headlines, but it still needs to be simple and easy to read.

Simplicity

This rule always aims to create readable content by providing simple fonts design and structure. Complex fonts and hard-to-read and confuse the reader and do not allow the user to read the content easily. However, the font should be simple and does not include a lot of details and decorations, unless your main aim is not reading the content.

Besides the choosing for the font style, it is important to keep the number of fonts used in the design limited and the colors of the fonts as well.

Contrast

Along with choosing the font type, the contract between the font and the background ensure a better view to the audience eye. Since, the eye will be able to recognize the font on the background, if the font color is not contrasted with the content, the user eye will confuse and will not be able to read the content very well. It is always recommended to have the text in black and the background in white, which provides the maximum value of contrast. This does not mean to limit yourself in just these two colors for the text, but you just need to make sure that you are providing a good contrast for the font display.

Styling

While simple fonts are better than complex fonts, using the font styling provide better recognition for the content structure. For example the usage for bold text for important words, and you can separate the text into a paragraph to avoid content overlapping.

Also, the content styling delivers the message better for the user such as writing all upper letter text to give the impression of shouting to the audience. However, you have to be careful when you apply the text styling.

Unity

When you choose the text, you have to choose the font that unifies with the general design or website. For example, when you choose a font for business site, the text should be simple and formal. On the other hand, when you choose the font for kids website, the font should be attractive to kids and not a formal font. The font colors play an important rule to achieve this unification by using the font colors that are applying and contrast with the design colors’ scheme.

Target audience

The target audience is an important factor when choosing your font. Users are different in their interest and their visual capabilities. When you can address with your content young audiences, you have to choose appropriate font size that can be big enough to let their young eyes to be able to get the information easily. On the other hand, business people would like to have a lot of information, so you need to use small fonts with the careful use for the number of colors and styles.

Along with these tips, I would like to share with you some of the fonts that got different designs and styles, you can check these fonts and seehow does it apply with the above tips and if you can use it in your design or website.