What are the principles of font selection

For many beginners, choosing a font is a disturbing process. From regular traditional fonts to magical little stick fonts and Easter bunny fonts, there seems to be an endless selection of options and endless lists and recommendations. In fact, the choice of the right font is a combination of hard rules and soft intuitive activities, and need years of experience to reach this realm, this article describes the use of the Five Principles of font.

1. Wearing occasion

Many of my new students choose fonts like new music, they analyze each font's characteristics, and then find fonts that have personalities that show their unique taste, personality and life experience. This method is actually problematic, because it is too heavy to look at the personality

In any case, choosing a font is more like choosing a dress for the day in the morning. As with clothes, the expressive and stylish fonts are different from those that are useful for more scenes, and our job is to find a balance on the occasion. Although fitness does not sound sexy, it is a decisive test that leads us to the right font.

One of my favorite clothes may be a 70-year shiny horn pant from a thrift store, but in fact I can't find a chance to wear it except for Halloween.

, each designer has a few favorite fonts, and there is a perfect opportunity to use it. But more often, I found that I always chose that old pair of jeans in the morning. That doesn't mean I like the jeans better than my favorite horn pants, but it just looks like I always wear them.

Each designer has a couple of main fonts like comfortable jeans: they are always there when they are matched with the surrounding content, or natural or formal, and are suited to the occasion. Usually, they have some degree of thickness (weight:light, Regular, Bold ...), or some styles (style:italic, condensed ...).

My sense of security fonts are: Sans serif fonts (Myriad, Gotham, DIN, Akzidenz grotest and Interstate) and serif fonts (Mercury, Electra, and Perpetua).

(Liner: Refers to the decorative details of the end of a zigzag stroke.) Sans serif fonts are used in western languages to refer to serif, where sans is the meaning of "none" in French. )

Fonts such as Helvetica Neue are used to express sounds and emotions. The comfortable hundred-lap font is like a comfortable pair of jeans for a designer.

2. Understanding font Family: Font grouping

The costume metaphor gives us a good idea of what we need to put together. So the next challenge is to come up with some kind of structure that we can use to classify fonts.

Font can be subdivided into many kinds, but based on the main use of the current understanding of communication needs, we only need to master five kinds of grouping.

The following list is not a classification of an integrated system, but a major category that can be quickly identified and remembered (this site has a more detailed classification). Let's look at 2 sans-serif groups, 2 lined groups and an alternative group.

1). Geometric SANS (geometric sans serif font group)

In fact, I've merged three different groups (geometric, realist and Grotesk), but their common ground is enough for us to understand. Geometric sans-serifs is a strict type of font based on geometric form. Usually it has the same letter weight and follows the principle of simple design.

Its advantages are: clear, generous, stylish, very common;

Its disadvantage is: cold, no emotional color, boring.

A classic geometric sans is like a beautifully designed airfield, it's impressive, modern and useful, but if we think about whether we want to live in a place like this, we have to think twice.

Examples of Geometric/realist/grotesk sans are: Helvetica, Univers, Futura, Avant Garde, Akzidenz Grotesk, Franklin Gothic, Gotham.

2). Humanist SANS (type sans serif font group)

This batch of fonts evolved from handwriting, though some seem concise and fashionable, but inevitably retain some human touch. For example, comparing the "T" in the image above with the "T" in the geometric, you will find that the human "T" contains more details and styles in it.

This is the essence of humanist sans: compared to the geometric sans basics design, humanist sans usually have more details, less consistency, the thickness of the letter lines will change frequently, after all, they are derived from personalized handwriting Ah ~

Its advantage is: fashion and human face coexist, clear and good understanding coexist;

Its downside: It looks a bit empty and the slight handwriting feels insincere.

Examples of humanist Sans are: Gill Sans, Frutiger, Myriad, Optima, Verdana.

3. Old Style (Vintage line font group)

Also known as "Venetian", they are our oldest fonts and are the result of the gradual evolution of the form of calligraphy that has undergone centuries. The feature of vintage fonts is that the contrast is not obvious (seemingly because of the technical limitations of that age), and that the bent letters tend to be biased toward the left.

Its advantages are: classic, traditional, good readability;

Its disadvantage is: too traditional ... -_-

Examples of old style are: Jenson, Bembo, Palatino, and especially Garamond (its birth is considered perfect, so that no one has ever wanted to improve it for a century and a half)

4. Transitional and Xiandai (transition and fashion serif font group)

As a product of Enlightenment ideas, transitional fonts (mid-18th century) and Xiandai fonts (in the late 18th century, not to be confused with the middle of the 20th century) were created by the font designers want to try to make the font more geometric, sharper and more artistic than the low-key old fonts. The transitional font marks a modest advance in this direction, although its classic typeface Baskerville look so sharp that people insist that it is damaging their eyesight.

In the process of creating Xiandai fonts, the font designer indulged in a display of strong contrast to line weights, which was influenced by the competition of two designers who created two similar fonts Bodoni and Didot.

Its advantages are: strong, stylish, energetic;

Its disadvantage is: it is difficult to locate, too conspicuous too baroque style so that not classic, too vulgar to be not really fashionable.

Examples of transitional serif fonts are: Times New Roman, Baskerville.

Examples of Xiandai serif fonts are: Bodoni, Didot.

5). Slab serifs (Slab line Font group, also called Egyptian Body "Egyptian")

Slab serif Font The unexpected strength of these years has come back into vogue. It usually has lines with sans serif font classes (with little change in thickness) and a strong rectangular lining at the end of the line. It conveys a very special, contradictory and interrelated feeling, like a freak: Sometimes the thinker, the tough guy, the bully, the nerd, the sophisticated man in the big city, the country cowboy sometimes.

Slab serif Fonts convey a sense of authority, such as Republication's Rockwell, which can be very friendly, such as the recently popular archer. Many slab fonts look cosmopolitan (such as Rockwell, Courier, and Lubalin), but when applied to different scenes, it (especially Clarendon) evokes the rural and native features of the western frontier and the period since that time. Slab serif fonts are difficult to generalize as a group, but the distinctive rectangular lining is like the horn-rimmed glasses: It adds a special feeling to everything, but it's especially noticeable when it's in an inappropriate scene.

Examples of slab serifs are: Clarendon, Rockwell, Courier, Lubalin Graph, Archer.

3. Don't be a coward: use the principle of decisive contrast

OK, now that we have a look at the font family and some of their classic examples, now we need to decide whether and how to mix and match them. A lot of times, a font is enough, especially our type has a lot of style changes in the main font. If we go to that level and want to add a font to this combination, there is a simple rule to follow: either the same, or very different, to avoid the slightest difference.

This is a major principle of design, it has an official name "consistency and contrast" (correspondence and contrast). The best way to observe this principle in action is to pour all the coins you collected on your trip to Europe on the table. If you put two identical coins together, they will look comfortable because they are the same (consistent). On the other hand, if I put a dime next to the big copper coins of any country in central Europe, they would look interesting because the contrast between them is too great.

What's not good is that when we put a dime in another country the same size is slightly different from the same color. This creates an uncomfortable visual relationship because it poses a problem, and even if we don't get it up to the level of consciousness, our brains might ask the question, "are the two coins the same or different?", the process of asking and thinking will distract us from the simple view of the content.

When we mix a lot of fonts in a design, we want them to be comfortable and peaceful, and we don't want users to think, "They're still different?" Distracted by such questions. So we can avoid having two fonts start with the same font group above, like the Franklin and Helvetica of the Geometric sans group, which are not exactly the same, but they are not quite as distinct:

If we want to put another font and Helvetica fit, the font effect will be much better than the classic Bembo in the vintage font. The age difference at the century level and the light years level of inspiration can make Helvetica and Bembo a comfortable contrast on one page:

Unfortunately, it is not so simple to choose a font that is large in contrast. For example, Garamond or Caslon can not guarantee the layout of the harmony. Like the Helvetica and Bembo examples above, there is often no real solution to why two fonts complement each other so well.

But if we want some principle to help us choose, it should be: Usually, if two fonts have a common character, and the rest are very different, they will match well. Commonality can be visual (such as the height of the font, such as line width), can also be the age of feeling. Fonts that come from the same age are highly likely to match each other, and it would be better if they were from the same designer.

4. A little bit can also play a big role

You say, "Enough, stop talking about these seemingly common fonts and rules!" "I need some content to use on my leaflet!" My Thai menu! My Christmas card! "The fonts you're talking about are all content fonts, meaning that you can use them throughout the menu or in the newspaper; in the parable of the dress, these are the jeans that are worn every day, So what are the shiny bell we wear for Christmas?

Occasionally, we also need a font to display personality, whether this sex is a psychedelic party, Thai fried river powder, or Santa Claus. This demand will take us to the vast display of the font (display typefaces) sea. "Show-type" means "Please do not exceed recommended dosage": for headings, display fonts are like a small condiment for design, but if used too widely, its light will be quickly depleted.

It's time for another costume metaphor

The image above is good because the powder belt plays an emphatic role and offsets the blue of a large number of jeans. But if we get carried away and put on a lot of pink, she might look like the following:

Let's call this the Pink belt rule: Character fonts are best used in small doses. If we use this cool display font in every paragraph of text, its charm will be drastically reduced, or worse, the whole design will become difficult to read. Let's design a menu for the corner Thai Restaurant. Our customers may want us to use a typical Asian display font, like Sho:

So far so good. But see what happens if we apply this font to the entire menu:

Enough, let's change the content to show it in a more neutral font:

This is much better. Now that we have control over the use of the display font, it is also shiny.

5. Rule fifth is "no law"

It's true. Look closely and you'll find dizzy menus made with unreadable display fonts, or two different geometric sans fonts on the same page happy to live together (in fact, this week I was also nervous about the use of this on a project, the result is very pleasantly surprised.) It's like there's no rule on what we should choose to wear in the morning. It is worthwhile to try all combinations, even with your Halloween bell on your court day.

At last

Hopefully these five rules have given you some guidance on how to choose applications, combinations, and combinations of fonts. Finally, choosing a font requires a combination of understanding and intuition and, like any other skill, requires practice. In the face of a wide variety of font choices now, it's easy to forget that you can use it only when you know how to use a font.

My first typesetting teacher once gave me good typography advice: Choose a font that you like and keep using it for months, regardless of other fonts. While this practice can sometimes be a constraint, it is a good reminder that the number of fonts available in the Internet age is not a substitute for quality.

Via:smashingmagazine

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