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Basic font types
Choose the fonts you use in your materials as carefully as you choose the words. Fonts should be appropriate for your audience. Materials prepared for young children would use different typefaces and type sizes than a brochure targeting a general business audience.
Whoever your audience may be, it's usually advisable to ensure that your materials are easy to read. Here are some tips to help you choose among the basic font types:
Display fonts & content fonts
Generally speaking, typefaces can be divided into two broad categories: display (or headline) fonts and content (or text) fonts. Display fonts can be very simple, but very bold, or very unusual, even flashy. Letters that drip blood, letters in children's alphabet blocks and letters formed by animals are just a few of the more exotic examples. Content fonts are always easy to read at almost any point size. The design of content fonts also helps the reader's eye move through long blocks of text more easily.
Use display fonts for things like headlines and some kinds of signs, where there is only a little text and the type size will be reasonably large. Display fonts are not suited for large blocks of text or small type sizes. The paragraph you are reading now would be much harder to decipher if it used a display font.
Use content fonts for longer blocks of text and even short pieces of text if the type size is small. Most material that you see every day, from newspapers and magazines to text on your computer screen, will use content fonts.
Serif fonts & sans serif fonts
Serifs are often called "little feet" and "little hats" – little lines or flanges at the ends of each letter. Times Roman is one example of a serif font. Typefaces that do not have these little lines are called sans serif, which literally means "without serif". Arial is an example of a sans serif font.
There is no rule that says you need to use more than one kind of font. You can design an entire document using just one font, but that can become rather boring for the reader. Mixing a serif and a sans serif typeface adds some visual interest and helps the reader. Although the rules for using these different type styles are flexible, there are some useful guidelines to keep in mind.
Use serif fonts for long blocks of text where the serifs on each letter help the reader's eye to move through the words by linking them together.
Use sans serif fonts for shorter blocks of text, captions and titles. The design of sans serif fonts tends to make each letter stand independent from the rest. Using sans serif type for longer blocks of text can make your materials harder to read.
When you're considering a typeface, prepare a sample using different sizes, from large to very small, to ensure that the font is readable at all the different sizes you may need for your materials.
Using display fonts
As long as you remember three things you can use whatever display font that appeals to you.
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First, remember that display fonts are intended for very short pieces of text, such as headlines.
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Second, remember that display fonts are intended to be reasonably large. The smaller you make them, the harder they are to read.
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Third, remember to choose a font that will suit your audience. Letters dripping blood might be appropriate for an invitation to a Halloween party, but probably not for a notice for a yard sale.
Display fonts are always best when they're used sparingly.
Bold, italic & underscoring
When people prepared manuscripts using typewriters there were only two ways of emphasizing text: underscoring or ALL CAPS. Someone who wanted to REALLY emphasize something might use both together: ALL CAPS UNDERSCORED.
Word processing lets us add emphasis to our text using attributes such as bold and italic instead of all caps. Bold, italic and underscoring all add visual interest to your materials if they're used sparingly. If you use them too much, they are less effective and can actually make your materials less effective.
Today underscores often indicate hyperlinks, web sites and e-mail addresses, so it is used less and less for emphasis. Italic type can be difficult to read, but is often used for quotations and other references.
Monospaced fonts
Every letter in a monospaced font occupies the same width. The letter "i" uses just as much space as the letter "m". Old typewriters had monospaced type. In the 1960s IBM introduced typewriters with proportional type. In proportional type, the letter "i" uses a much narrower space than the letter "m".
Script fonts
Script typefaces resemble calligraphy or handwriting. They can be much more difficult to read than serif or sans serif fonts. Consider using them in flyers and invitations. They are also used for logo design.
Blackletter fonts
Blackletter typefaces are also called gothic script. These fonts resemble the calligraphy that was in use before the invention of the printing press. Early printing presses used this style of type. You might use a blackletter font as display type on a certificate or an award.
Symbol fonts
There are many different types of symbol fonts, including Dingbats, Wingdings and mathematical symbols. Symbol typefaces are most often used for bullets or other decorative purposes.
The earliest forms of writing were primarily used for record-keeping. Scribes kept inventories and other records for kings and emperors. Since humankind invented writing, its primary purpose has been to store and communicate information. Keep this in mind as you choose fonts for your materials. The typefaces you use should communicate your message, not make it harder to understand.
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