Which fonts to use

This article was originally written by Alex Bigman and published in It has been updated with new examples and information. Our newsletter is for everyone who loves design!

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Get a design. With the best fonts, your design can be a work of art. Futura is a clean typeface with even kerning Consistency Consistency means all the letters, numbers and any other characters used maintain the same look. Mrs Eaves has a consistent distribution of hard edges to rounded corners Balanced fonts A balanced blend of thick and thin, heavy and light, is an important component of a good font.

Bodoni has an even weight distribution, like a classy font should Legible fonts And lastly, a font must be legible. Garamond is a classic font because it is both elegant and legible at varying sizes. Imbalanced fonts When a font is balanced, we read it as aesthetically pleasing. When we see balance, we see beauty. When we see imbalance, we see ugliness and when a font is completely neutral, it reads as somewhere in between.

The cowboys are bleeding and so are our eyes. Boring fonts And then there are the fonts that are just dull, which makes them a bad font choice. Different fonts and lettering styles will convey a different mood for the brand they represent. Does it fit my brand? Want a font that steals the show? Our designers have you covered. Let's go. You're in!

You proved us right again. Our newsletter is only for the coolest kids. Slab Serifs are hard to generalize about as a group, but their distinctive blocky serifs function something like a pair of horn-rimmed glasses: they add a distinctive wrinkle to anything, but can easily become overly conspicuous in the wrong surroundings.

So, now that we know our families and some classic examples of each, we need to decide how to mix and match and — most importantly — whether to mix and match at all. This is a general principle of design, and its official name is correspondence and contrast. The best way to view this rule in action is to take all the random coins you collected in your last trip through Europe and dump them out on a table together.

If you put two identical coins next to each other, they look good together because they match correspondence. On the other hand, if we put a dime next to one of those big copper coins we picked up somewhere in Central Europe, this also looks interesting because of the contrast between the two — they look sufficiently different.

This creates an uneasy visual relationship because it poses a question, even if we barely register it in on a conscious level — our mind asks the question of whether these two are the same or not, and that process of asking and wondering distracts us from simply viewing. We can start by avoiding two different faces from within one of the five categories that we listed above all together — two geometric sans, say Franklin and Helvetica.

While not exactly alike, these two are also not sufficiently different and therefore put our layout in that dreaded neither-here-nor-there place. If we are going to throw another font into the pot along with Helvetica, much better if we use something like Bembo, a classic Old Style face. Centuries apart in age and light years apart in terms of inspiration, Helvetica and Bembo have enough contrast to comfortably share a page:.

But if we want some principle to guide our selection, it should be this: often, two typefaces work well together if they have one thing in common but are otherwise greatly different. This shared common aspect can be visual similar x-height or stroke weight or it can be chronological. Typefaces from the same period of time have a greater likelihood of working well together… and if they are by the same designer, all the better.

And my Thai restaurant menu! And my Christmas cards! What of our Halloween flares? And this need brings us into the vast wilderness of Display typefaces, which includes everything from Comic Sans to our candy-cane and bunny fonts. Photo credit: Betsssssy.

But if we get carried away and slather Betsey entirely in pink, she might wind up looking something like this:. Photo credit: Phillip Leroyer. If we apply our cool display type to every bit of text in our design, the aesthetic appeal of the type is quickly spent and — worse yet — our design becomes very hard to read. Enough already. Look hard enough and you will find a dazzling-looking menu set entirely in a hard-to-read display font.

Start building your resume here. Additional reporting by Business News Daily staff members. Some source interviews were conducted for a previous version of this article. Andrew Martins. Calibri Having replaced Times New Roman as the default Microsoft Word font, Calibri is an excellent option for a safe, universally readable sans-serif font. Cambria This serif font is another Microsoft Word staple.

Garamond Job seekers looking for an old-style font may want to consider using Garamond for their resumes. Didot If you work in a creative industry like fashion or photography, you can showcase your style and sophistication with Didot.

Georgia If you want a traditional-looking alternative to the oft-overused Times New Roman, consider switching to Georgia. Helvetica This clean, modern, sans-serif font is a favorite among designers and typographers.

Arial If you want to use a sans-serif font, Arial is considered by many to be the safest bet. Book Antiqua Based on the classic Palatino font, Book Antiqua has a "distinctive and gentle" style that's great for anyone looking to use a serif font without having to rely on the oft-maligned Times New Roman. Business News Daily Staff. Andrew Martins has written more than articles for business.

Andrew writes about office hardware such as digital copiers, multifunctional printers and wide format printers, as well as critical technology services like live chat and online fax. Andrew has a long history in publishing, having been named a four-time New Jersey Press Award winner. Build Your Career. Updated Don't let the "skills" section of your resume fall flat. Add these Laptop Buying Guide for Small Business.

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