Working with type

I think that there are really 2 things that really impact the tone of a piece. One is the type and the other the colors you choose. Changing either immediately changes the mood of the layout.

The typeface you choose depends on what look you are looking for; it’s usually defined by your audience.

You can set the tone for your type by:

1. Age: kids, teens, adult, seniors
2. Sex: Male or female
3. Image: Professional, conservative, progressive
4. Field: Banking, pharmaceutical, real estate
5. Mood: Comical, sporty, casual
6. Era: ‘60’s, disco, renaissance
7. Culture: Italian, French, Indian, Chinese

Once you’ve established the dominant category, the rest is intuitive.

However, here are a few more tips:

1. Generally, I like mixing sans serifs and serif fonts. For body type, I usually like to use serif fonts. Thanks to their descenders, they are much easier to read. Headlines and subheads are in sans serifs
2. Use display fonts sparingly!
3. For more progressive or “hip” designs, sans serifs are generally preferred
4. Never choose similar fonts, always choose very different typefaces to avoid it looking like a mistake
5. For websites, I always use sans serif fonts. But, you can use serif fonts for headlines and subheads. I prefer sans for both.
6. Follow all typographic rules
7. Backgrounds to the fonts make them harder to read
8. Rarely use ALL CAPS as it decreases legibility
9. Pay special attention to windows and orphans
10. Last lines of paragraphs should always have at least 7 characters.

SEE TYPOGRAPHY IN USE

See this sample article I created on typography where all that was featured was typography — no pictures used. You can also read the article in full here.

Technorati Tags: Design Theory, Print Design, Typography

Related posts:

1. What do your serif fonts say about you?
2. What do your sans serif fonts say about you
3. How to choose the typeface for your headlines
4. 10 “Safe” fonts you can use on websites
5. Typography on the web