How to Choose the Perfect Fonts for Your Designs Part Two
● Consider Visual and Tonal Direction
Visual is very much the font and how it looks, while tonal is the arrangement of words to form a message. Both of these elements need to harmonize and be sympathetic to each other.
Use the values you decided earlier to understand what a font truly says and how a message looks when you compare it to what is written.
The right font can amplify words in this way so the visual characteristics of a font are important to make the relationship work.
● Readability
People often confuse legibility and readability. Legibility is how easily recognizable each letterform is within a typeface. Readability, though, is how easy the typeface actually is to read (especially in large blocks of text) and depends on a number of factors.
The legibility of a typeface definitely affects its readability. But so do factors like the size of the typeface, contrast with the background, the weight of the font, and other visual factors.
A typeface that is perfectly readable at one size may become hard to read at a different size. This is why it’s important to understand how your typographic content will be used in your actual design before choosing a typeface.
● Contrast
Contrasting fonts create optimum visual impact. The best way to create contrast is to use sans serif font for the headline and a serif font for the body text, especially since serif fonts make the body copy easier to read.
Contrasting fonts allows you to easily guide the reader through the page. Contrasting fonts enable the reader to easily scan the page and spot the most important parts of the text.
Create good visual contrast by applying a combination of serifs with sans serifs fonts. It s usually used in flyer printing.
● Notice Typography Around You
As a designer, type should be in your consciousness, not something you only think about when you need to use it.
Try following some foundries like Dalton Maag, Monotype, Hoefler & Co, Font Bureau and Commercial Type on social networking sites, follow trending typography hashtags, read typography blogs or simply keep your eyes peeled for good and bad examples of type you see out in the world. The more you notice, the more you'll know.
