As a design geek, I can find myself obsessing over every little detail but perhaps one of the most important is the simple font. It often gets overlooked and people will keep things default. Now there’s nothing inherently wrong with Times New Roman, Arial, Helvetica, or Calibri but the truth is in most cases, the only things these fonts express is that the author was too lazy to change it.
I’ve often heard people tell me that tone and meaning can get lost in text messages. These short little messages are left up to interpretation by the reader which has led to the rise in use of emojis to help convey what the writer intends.
Luckily for web, print, and pretty much all long form methods of writing, there’s an alternative. Fonts. A plain sans serif font like Roboto is easy to read and conveys a no nonsense message. Script fonts like Satisfy convey a sense of elegance and grace. Serif fonts like Noto Serif invoke a sense of professionalism. But these are just three of hundreds of thousands of fonts out there. Even if you just stick to the freely available Google Fonts, you have over a thousand options available to you. Some are professional, some are fun, some are just plain weird.
These typefaces will help you convey your tone in such a way that you don’t need to rely on emojis to get your point across. With most design you’ll want a headline font, a body font for most of the text, and an accent font for when you want something to stand out. Stick to three or four fonts and take the time to find ones that represent you and your brand. The headline and body font should work well together but it’s okay for the accent font to be a little out there.
Your font choices are part of your brand. They should reflect your tone and personality. Just remember not to overdo it!
