15 tips for selecting an excellent text font

Many people ask me how to select a proper font for a magazine, a newspaper, a poster, a briefing, or a publication. I usually tell them which font to use, but I know that this is not the best answer, because they have not learned how to choose on their own.

Today, I plan to spend some time analyzing how to select the correct text font for different cases for typographical design. You should know that these skills are not a good adviser when you choose text fonts. In any case, this choice depends on what you want to use this font to express. In many cases, the personality of Yi and font is equally important. Therefore, please remember the following points and be careful.

1. The Letterform font

The above "bend" shows the font structure. This is important. To make the text easier to read, we should adopt fonts that are as simple as possible without too much complicated details. These details will distract readers. We should keep them focused on text content rather than fonts.

2. The Weight word Weight

When we discuss the font "weight", we refer to a consistent relationship between characters and the overall "brightness" of the page text stream ". If you set a slim font for a large text segment, it will be very laborious to read, and no one is willing to read it.

3. Comparison of The Contrast thickness

Width comparison refers to the thickness difference between the vertical and horizontal strokes-the difference between the largest part of the character and the smallest part of the character. Bodoni and Didot are fonts with a strong contrast in width. If you see a copy of the Bodoni text, you will find that you have no horizontal strokes. A well-designed text font should be able to withstand repeated copies. Its strokes should be strong and not rough.

4. The axis axial

I think the axial setting of the font will also affect reading. The mainstream of the text font is vertical strokes. If the axial direction is skewed, the line of sight will flow along the text direction, which will cause interference. If a font uses more than one axial line, the line of text looks as if it was dancing, which is hard to read. If you adopt vertical axial lines, the characters will not dance.

5. x height

The area between the v baseline and the x height contains most of the readable information (75% lower case letters ). This is a very important area when reading the text. If the ascending and descending parts are long, the x height will inevitably be small. If you compare the two fonts with different lengths in the upper part of the figure, you will see that the latter's x height is greater, so it is easier to recognize. You can compare the differences between the Times New Roman and Mrs. Eaves fonts.

6. Capital letters height Capital letter height

In the old font design, the upper-right and upper-right fonts are the same as the upper-right fonts. In some fonts, the writing height should be larger... it is usually hard to see the case when the upper and lower cases are connected. For example, if I write a 'garamond ', this "G" looks like a dinosaur, and the "a" behind it looks like its prey...

7. Endings and details ends and details

When we use a font under a large font (for example, a poster), everything is magnified. All the design details become obvious, and there are also obvious flaws. Many fonts are actually poorly drawn. As designers, this is what we can't bear.

8. Text and texture Text and layout pattern

From a distance, text blocks are like a striped fabric. This pattern should be even, and especially highlighted characters will be distracted like stains.

9. Degree of the Counter Opening

In the design of many fonts, the word grain is too dead. This will lead to difficulties in identification. Some people will regard this "c" as an "o ". However, if the word Valley is too open (like Frutiger), the boundaries between the internal and external spaces will become blurred, so that a large amount of white space will be generated, which looks ugly.

10. The Fish Effect Fish-eye Effect

When the internal space is significantly larger than the character spacing, this effect is very prominent. So when a circular letter is connected to a letter written in a pen, it looks weird.

11. External counter External space

Some small details make it easier to recognize a text font. If the external space is well designed, the text will be easier to read. Think about the link between the vertical pen and the arc in the lower case "n", or the difference between 'RN 'and 'M.

12. Internal counter Internal space

If the word "eye" of 'a' or 'e' is too small, they may not exist at all when the font size is small. These are the most commonly used letters in most languages, so this is not a small problem.

13. Is the set complete? Complete character set

I don't know how many times, we found that the font we used was missing some characters, and it was not found until our design was completed. Horrible! We had to change the font and proofread all the text. Many font designers miss some characters, such as "& ntilde;", heavy notes, wavy lines, periods, commas, and even numbers... therefore, you must check its integrity before using a font.

14. The family

Another important thing is to check whether the word family is rich enough, whether it contains different pounds, thickness, and Italy. Make sure it is as easy to read as the regular version. They sometimes contain many Rococo-style details.

15. Letter spacing character spacing

Some fonts have poor font spacing, and even do not set the font spacing. Of course, they do not have any good effects. A good designer will correct the bad word spacing, but if all the word spacing is bad, you will be busy. Of course, some software will have some auxiliary functions, but it will never be as good as what a font designer does. So try to use the appropriate font for the spacing and measurement.