Understanding typography

I like to think of typography as the “no-makeup makeup” of your brand, because when you get your typography right, very few people will notice that you've done it. But when you get it wrong, the disconnect is glaring.

Here's something else to bear in mind. Most people only spend 11 seconds scanning an email. This means they need to very quickly be able to read and scan your words. More research has shown that people actually take twice as long to read fancy fonts. That brings their time consuming your actual content down to five and a half seconds. That's not a lot of time!

Getting the typography right increases the time people are able to give to your words, and it increases the amount of content of yours that they will take in and retain.

And that's worth paying attention to, don't you think?

Important to note…

 

BODY COPY & HEADINGS

In this exercise, we are going to concentrate on body copy. Body copy is a term used for long blocks of text: think website pages, emails, brochures, books, social media, captions, anything with sentences and paragraphs is probably body copy.

Body copy is not the place for getting fancy. Remember: your words need to be as easy as possible for people to read or scan. So the best font to use in your body copy is one that is first of all, legible. And secondly, one that makes sense in the context of your brand.

I’m including headings and sub-headings in this activity, because they work together with your paragraphs. You may choose heading fonts that are from the same typographic family as your headings (but bigger and heavier), or something different that complements your body copy.

What’s not included here is a font for your logo. That’s because your logo should stand out. You should never use the same font in your body copy that you have used in your logo, as that muddies the distinction your logo should have.

However, your logo, when you create it, will be rendered as an image, so you will be free to choose a more decorative or hand-drawn font if that suits your brand.

UNDERSTANDING WEB FONTS

To be sure your font is legible, I recommend you stick with “web fonts” for your body copy and sub-headings.

These are fonts that are easy to read on a screen, and are often embedded into web browsers so that they look the way you want them to look no matter what browser the other person is using.

A font that isn't a web font might look beautiful on your computer when you hit publish, but when someone else looks at your website or newsletter, it's transformed into a different font altogether. The layout of your page is ruined and it looks ugly and is difficult to read.

Web fonts versus web-safe fonts

Choosing web fonts stops that from happening - most of the time. If you want an absolute guarantee, you’ll need to use web-safe fonts. These fonts show true everywhere, even in emails, but your choices are very limited; you can only choose from Arial, Courier New, Georgia, Times New Roman, Trebuchet MS, and Verdana.

To my mind, a web font is a good compromise: they are ubiquitous enough to show true on most browsers, but varied and interesting enough to enable us to express our brands.

BE CONSISTENT

The real challenge is to be consistent. And this is more difficult than you think, because depending on the platform you’ll be working on, you have access to different fonts.

For example: the font pairing I use on my website, which you’re looking at here, is “Garamond” for the body copy, and “Orpheus Pro” for the headings.

If I want to use Canva, they don’t have Orpheus Pro, so I have to change the way my headings look (= inconsistent, less professional).

Orpheus Pro is an Adobe font, so I was able to download it to my computer to use on my print products, since I use Adobe software (InDesign, Photoshop, that kind of thing). But not everyone is doing this!

Don’t get too distressed and caught up, but I do encourage you not to choose obscure fonts (that you find on dafont.com, for example) and then use them on your website, because you will struggle to appear consistent elsewhere. Save those fonts for your logo, if you love them.

To help you remain consistent, all the suggestions I make for you here are web fonts, or cloud fonts hosted by Google or Adobe.

Workbook instructions

  • 1. Create a shortlist

    Spend some time looking through all the content you already create. If you have them, this could include your website, emails, newsletter, any printed materials. Take a note of all the font families you’re using so far.

    Now spend some time playing on your word processor. Type a few paragraphs of text into it, then experiment by changing all the fonts.

    Finally, if you want to, take a look through the cloud fonts on Google and Adobe.

    Make a short-list of all your favourite fonts. (But remember: you are only looking for body copy - nothing too decorative or fancy! Stick with serif or sans-serif options)

  • 2. Answer workbook questions

    Decide if your mood-words are better suited to serif fonts (more traditional, classic and conservative) or sans-serif fonts (more contemporary, minimal and approachable).

    (Need a definition? Serifs are the little decorative strokes or blobs on the end of the letters. Look at the Times New Roman letters, for example. “Sans” is the French word for “without,” so, “sans-serif” means “without the serifs”. Look at Ariel, for example.)

    Using the shortlist you created in Step 1, work your way through the questions on page 32.

  • 3. Font combinations

    Now look over the emotion-inspired font combinations below, and have a think about what might suit you. I’m going to ask you to come at this a few different ways.

    First, look at the feelings (with the sandy-brown colour behind them) on the list, and choose which ones best match a) your audience, and b) your mood-words. Note these matches down in your workbook on page 33. (Don’t worry about the font examples, just the feelings).

    Next, look at the font combinations themselves. Obviously, what’s here are just examples, but you’ll get the idea. Note down which font combinations personally appeal to you.

  • 4. Finalise your choices

    Now look back over your shortlist, favourite fonts, preferred combinations and font feelings/moods. In your workbook, note down which fonts you think would work best as the headings in your text, and which ones would work best for your body copy.

    It’s OK if you feel you’re not quite there yet, make your best decision and we can work through it in our workshop. If you’re still struggling, the survey on the Lesson 4 homepage may give you some additional insights.

Emotion-inspired font pairings