Can't Miss This: How to choose a font

That pretty much sums up how I feel about typography.

I am constantly looking for resources to help me become better at picking fonts that accentuate my designs or provide their own personality. This past week when I was working on my covers, I was stumped. So I went to our old friend Helvetica since we had just watched a movie, where we learned how it is able to adopt the feel of many different emotions, brands, etc. However, I just wasn't pleased. It was kind of boring with little to no personality.

Last week, I was also busy grading projects for the regular design class, where some of my students type choices had just the opposite problems. They're fonts had way too much personality. And they were all competing with each other.

So, this morning (I know, what a nerd), I was scanning the WWW for some advice when I came across a 2010 article on Smashing Magazine called, "What Font Should I Use." I think the article is very interesting, so I will give you some of the highlights. (Click the link to read the whole story for yourself.)

1. Dress for the occasion

This is the idea I was referring to above when my student choose too expressive and "stylish" fonts that tend to scream at the reader rather can complement the design. The idea is to have a few outlandish ones but also a few workhorse typefaces.

2. Know Your Families:

I think this is a section best read thoroughly on the website.

3. The principle of decisive contrast

The idea of mixing and matching is something I used for the first time on my "type" cover for the the vignettes edition of Vox thanks to Nick suggesting it. I think it turned out well. This section basically tells designers not to be wimps about changing the weight and contrast a lot because if you just do it a little it will look like a mistake. However, mixing and matching doesn't always guarantee typographic harmony.

4. A little can go a long way

I loved the example used in this section. First, there is yet another fashion reference that totally makes sense, but the real is a restaurant menu for a Thai restaurant. The basic idea that that every once and a while you have a design that oozes the need for a font with personality and that's fine. However, it needs to be used as an accent. The first Thai restaurant menu shows a "asia-fied" font being used all over the menu right down to the prices. The second example uses only the "fun" font on the topic for the restaurant name and then a more traditional typeface for the rest of the menu. HUGE difference.

5. There are no rules

DON'T TELL ME THAT! This is the rule that makes designing so difficult. It's not a math problem, it's an art.