I recently picked up a book at the store and read the back cover and inside dust jacket. It seemed interesting, so I flipped open to a random page. My eyes began to physically hurt! This is not one of those “I can’t believe you chose that font” rants — the book was literally illegible to me. While the premise was appealing, I could not imagine suffering through 200+ pages of eye strain, so I set it back on the shelf.
This happens everyday. I will gladly join the argument that content is more important than presentation, but if you can’t even get your audience to read what you are trying to present, the ideas are worthless. Typesetting can be very complicated: people make a living doing it, schools offer multiple courses on it, and libraries are full of books on the subject. I love it. I used to run around yelling out the names of typefaces and pointing out mistakes that “non-designer types” would never see. I finally stopped at the insistance of my friends who were embarrassed by my scrutinizing of restaurant menus. This is when I realized that if you follow a handful of rules you can avoid most “I can’t read this” scenarios.
The best thing to remember is that effective typesetting is the kind that the reader never thinks about. So while full time typesetters may know how to embellish and emphasize like the pros they are, small business owners who are creating their own materials should follow the doctor’s creed of “first do no harm.”
| Avoid these typical mistakes: • Too many different fonts, colors, or embellishments. • Decorative or display font used as body copy. • Writing in all uppercase. • Font that is too large or too widely spaced. • Lines and paragraphs that are too long. |
Use no more than two fonts, and three weights or embellishments.
You should use two different fonts when creating printed materials. One for your headlines and one for your body copy. Strategically, headlines are written in bolder sans-serifs, meaning they don’t have the “tails” or small lines coming off of the letters. The Arial typeface is one of the most widely recognized sans-serifs. When in doubt, use this as your headline font.
Your body copy should be set in a serif font, meaning it has the “tails” coming off the individual letters. Think Times New Roman when you think serifs and body copy. The serifs on these types of fonts mimic handwriting and subtly work to guide the reader’s eyes to the next letter or word.
A subtle change in the weight (boldness), style, or color of words signals the reader that the information is important. Not so subtle changes, or too many of them can make it difficult for the reader to understand what it is that the author is trying to emphasize. For the largest impact, embellishments and weights should be used very strategically, and only when trying to make a point.
Use dark fonts on light backgrounds.
Upon first glance, reverse type (light text on a dark background) may look cool, but trying to read through more than just a little bit of it will strain your eyes. Simply put, it’s not something you should be using. Also be sure that you are selecting a font color and background color with enough contrast. Again, the longer the amount of copy, the more simple the color combination should be. Black font on white background is always a safe bet.
Never write body copy in all uppercase.
Lowercase letters have very distinct shapes (created by the parts of letters that ascend and descend past the base height of the font). When written in all uppercase, words become more difficult for our brain to recognize because we have to physically look at and process each letter. You may recall an argument about whether or not street signs should be in all uppercase or titlecase. Originally it was thought that larger, bolder letters were easier to read. However, further research shows us that when you’re on the lookout for a specific street, you are more likely to recognize the shape of the word before you can distinguish individual letters.
Don’t make font too large, or put too much space between lines.
There is a reason that large print books are a special order. Just like writing a word in all uppercase destroys the shape of it, making a word so large that it cannot be processed in a single glance makes it harder for our brains to process. Billboards use huge fonts because they are viewed from far away in a short amount of time. Imagine the complexity of trying to read a billboard while standing directly underneath it. 12pt font is usually a good starting point. Try not to set body copy for print in anything under 10pt, or over 14pt. There are of course exceptions to this rule, but this will usually allow for a pleasant reading experience.
Similarly, having too little or too much space between lines of copy can make it more difficult to process. This space is called leading and is based on the amount of lead spacers place between lines of copy on an old fashioned letterpress. A good rule of thumb is to add 2 points of leading to whatever your font size is. For example, a font size of 12pts should have leading of 14pts. Generally, programs like Word do not even give you the option to change this ratio, but it is still a good rule to know. The alignment of your paragraphs should be left, as it helps guide eyes to the next line.
Sometimes these rules can be ignored with great results.
More often than not though, stepping outside of these boundaries will make our content eligible. If you follow the above rules, your readers will probably not even notice your typesetting…they’ll be too busy reading your content.
