Fonts make or break

When it comes to designing, the font is very important. The good one, that is.  Without a good font, your design can fully fall apart and into the trash. But what is good design and what isn’t? That’s something you might be wondering day in day out.

To start with. When designing something, keep the number of fonts to a minimum. Not more than 3 fonts on a page, is something I always keep in mind when I look at a page that needs to be designed. Especially for a flyer or poster. Because that was the critique I always got was that It was never good enough on the fonts.

Over time I learned and learned what is good, what does fit, and how that would come across. Some of my favorites are:

• Futura
• Helvetica
• Akzidenz-Grotesk
• Clarendon
• Gill Sans
• Verdana
• Uni Sans
• Open Sans ( Web )

I always check to see if these fit within my work.  Sometimes they do, sometimes they don’t.

But what makes a good Font? Because even though they can look vastly different from each other, the best typefaces have a lot of the same things in common:

• Even kerning
• Consistency
• Balance
• Legibility

What is kerning?

Kerning is the space between two characters. Too little space and the font is unreadable because the letters are smushed together. Too much space, and it’s hard to tell whether the space is meant to separate letters or words.

What is consistency?

Consistency means all the letters, numbers, and any other characters used to maintain the same look. If a font’s letter “A” has serifs, we expect its B to have serifs too, and so on from there.

What is a balanced font?

A balanced blend of thick and thin, heavy and light, is an important component of a good font.

What’re legible fonts?

And lastly, a font must be legible. A font you can’t read is like an image that’s so busy you can’t tell what it’s supposed to be a picture of. Always check by writing a variety of words in the fonts, making sure you use every letter and a bunch of different letter combinations. Scale it up, then scale it down to see if there’s a size at which it becomes difficult to read.  Make test texts. see if it works with reading. For this reason, I write out fake texts.

This is what is usually used, Lorum Ipsum

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Can you make your own fonts?

You can for sure. But I would rather use it for small things like your own quotes or for a logo if you want it. In this video below I made my own fonts using IFontMaker on my iPad.