On Fonts and Food

Imagine that you are having a couple of friends over for pizza, and they will be showing up in about 15 minutes. You have your hand-tossed dough, sauce spread, cheese sprinkled*—the perfect blank canvass. Now what toppings are you going to choose?

Are you in the mood for something light and hip, like organic spinach artichoke arugula? Or do you want to pile on the fatty pepperoni, sausage, ham, and bacon in a no holds barred extreme meat lovers combo?

But you could see how the delicate arugula and greasy pepperoni might not work as well when paired together, right?

Before I stretch this dough metaphor too far—choosing fonts is a little like choosing pizza toppings. You should pick fonts that work well together and support the mood or feel of your overall design.

Making the Choice

Here’s a simple process that you can follow as you start picking fonts that will help you narrow your choices.

1. Read

Sounds basic. But take the time to read the text you’ll be setting, and ask yourself a few questions about it.

• What does it say?
• How does it sound?
• What’s the tone of voice? Is it serious, friendly, sarcastic, etc.?
• Is there a lot of it?
• Who is going to be reading it? Your buddies, your grandmother, etc.?

2. Brainstorm

Write down a few key words on how the text feels, or should feel (ex. use words like “formal,” “funny,” “whimsical,” “strong,” or “serious”).

You will likely want fonts that communicate those same key words. Look at the fonts available to you, and ask yourself what kind of mood or voice they have. What invisible messages or hints do they give you?

Of course, this can be subjective. Some fonts could overlap several different moods. Some fonts will be so neutral that they don't have a discernible mood (I’m looking at you, Helvetica).

3. Experiment

On with the fun! Start playing with different fonts until it feels right. Until the message of the words themselves and the design are one; or put another way, until all of the components agree on a consistent theme.

There’s going to be more than one right answer. Your choice may be different than mine, and that’s OK.

Here are some of my experiments setting the same phrase in the same color in several different moods.

Any of these may work in a given context. But do you see how each one sets a different expectation of what Friend Day might be like?

If you’re feeling stuck, here are a few things you could try:

• Try a font you would never use, or don’t even like.
• Look at the other elements on the page. How might they influence your choice? Are there strong geometric shapes, maybe a strong geometric sans-serif or a blocky slab-serif would work well. Is it more rustic and organic looking? Maybe a hand-written font would suit you nicely.
• Try choosing a font that is the opposite of what you want.

The wrong font will probably be more obvious than the right one.

A Few More Tips

As you choose and pair fonts, here are a few more things to consider.

• Limit your selection to 2 or 3 fonts. (Unless you intentionally want to create an eclectic or chaotic feel.)
• When pairing fonts, choose ones that contrast strongly with each another. Think twice before combining two fonts of the same category (such as two oldstyle serif fonts).
• Fonts that are complex, pretty, or fancy will sacrifice some legibility as their letterforms won't be as quickly recoginzed. Avoid novelty fonts for running paragraph text. Form follows function.
• Consider using fonts that were intentionally made for your medium. For example, transitional serif fonts were created to be easy to read in print, and some fonts today, like Verdana, were made to be best viewed on screen.

Where to Find Fonts

If you find your library of fonts lacking, you’re in luck. There are more fonts available today than you can shake a stick at and hundreds of places to buy them online.

You can find some beautiful faces at Myfonts.com; there are even some for free.

You may also want to check Lost Type, an interesting type Co-Op.

There are also many sites offering fonts for free, like Font Squirrel. You will find free fonts of varying degrees of quality, but there are some hidden gems in the mix. Be sure to check the license restrictions of any free fonts you download to make sure they allow for your type of project.

Hope you’ve enjoyed this brief look at picking fonts, and feel free to add your comments.

*Yes, it is also acceptable to put toppings under the cheese and sauce on top, for all of you lovers of Chicago style deep dish pizza. For the purpose of this article, I assumed thin crust.

“Font categories...,” you say. Sound exciting?

I’ve gotta admit, I really love this stuff. The mind-numbing number of fonts available to designers today makes me feel like a kid in a candy store.

Every font has a voice—a mood—a story to tell. Part of the magic of typography is using the unique subtleties of a font to reinforce the meaning of the words themselves. Once you start seeing the differences in fonts, you’ll start to get a feel for their unique character.

There are several systems for classifying fonts, but no two are exactly the same. The categories I’m listing overlap neatly with just about any system. Some fonts may fall into more than one category; others may defy classification. Regardless, this isn’t meant to be a comprehensive lecture on font categories. My goal is that you can walk away from this article with a broad overview and some “big mental buckets” to drop fonts into as you see them in the wild.

Some font category differences will be pretty obvious.

While some will be more subtle.

Enough introduction, let’s get started.

1. Archaic (or Historic) Fonts

Before the invention and widespread adoption of movable type printing, scribes painstakingly hand-lettered parchment or vellum and stone-cutters chiseled words into rock. Makes being a graphic designer by today’s standards seem pretty easy.

The fonts in this category bring with them a wonderment of human craftsmanship and the romance of ancient history.

In early writing the shape of the characters was directly related to the tools used to create them, be that a brush, a quill or a chisel. You’ll notice organic texture and natural variation between thick and thin strokes depending on the angle of the calligraphic tool.

This type of writing pre-dates the English language, but we can still use these beautiful forms to our advantage.

Arguably, the most well-known archaic font is Trajan, with it’s impressive forms inspired by Trajan’s column and first-century Roman writing.

Here’s another example of a historic font in action. This is a clipping of a flyer we created to promote a patriotic concert. The font used here is Auquiline.

2. Serif Fonts

Most simply, serif fonts contains small details that project from the end of their strokes.

The exact origin of serifs is a bit of a mystery, but there is a general consensus that scribes copied the letters of stone carvers. Serifs could have been chisel marks that carvers used to “clean up” the ends of their strokes. Another possibility is that letters were first painted onto the stone and stone cutters simply followed the natural flair made by the brush at the end of the stroke.

Traditionally serif fonts have been considered easy to read and are still very commonly used for book print.

They can also be grouped into several sub categories:

Oldsytle Serif (or Humanist)

With the coming of movable type to Europe in the 1400’s, printing moved from hand-written copies to impressions of letters that were cut into wood or metal. Oldstyle serif fonts resemble the typefaces of the Renaissance. They have a strong visual connection to the movement of the human hand (hence the name humanist). The serifs also smoothly taper into the strokes.

Transitional Serif

Transitional serifs originated in the 1700’s most notably in the work of the Englishman John Baskerville. They have more thick to thin contrast in their strokes, appear less handmade, and have sharper serifs than their oldstyle parents.

Modern Serif

Modern serifs take the thick and thin contrast to an extreme. They radically depart from the organic, hand-made shapes of oldstyle faces. Their rounded shapes, and sharp un-bracketed serifs give them a rational, geometric feel.

3. Slab Serif (or Egyptian) Fonts

In contrast to the serif fonts mentioned earlier, Slab Serif fonts have heavy, thick projections of about the same thickness as their stems. These fonts first began to appear in the industrial revolution of the nineteenth century. Serif fonts grew to be bigger, bolder, and fatter to meet the advertising industry’s ever-growing need for new display faces.

Slab Serif fonts became known as “Egyptian” because of the popular fascination with Egyptian artifacts at the time.

4. Sans-serif:

Sans-serif fonts are also a product of the display types of the industrial revolution.

As the name suggests, they have no projections from their strokes. (The French word “sans” means “without.” Hence sans-serif = without serifs.)

However, like their serif counterparts they come in a variety of styles ranging from the humanist, organic forms to the modern, geometric forms, and some in between.

Humanist Sans-serif

Transitional Sans-serif

Modern Sans-serif

5. Script Fonts

Script fonts provide a welcome break from the mechanical and electronic letterforms we so regularly consume and produce. Their whimsical calligraphic shapes showcase the skill of hand-lettering, and can range from beautifully formal to down-right comical.

6. Graphic Fonts

Much like the industrial revolution, the technological revolution of our day has created a demand for unique decorative fonts. Font designers and casual enthusiasts alike have acess to tools to create fonts quickly and efficiently.

The result has been an explosion of fonts that experiment with shape and texture in an unprecedented way. Inspired by handwriting, vintage signs, space-age rockets, or just about anything else—they are difficult to categorize succinctly.

Wow, that’s a lot of fonts!

There’s certainly a lot more that could said, but I hope this has given you a bird’s eye view of the font landscape.

So with thousands of fonts available for every mood, taste, and budget, how do you know what’s the best one for your design project? We’ll talk about that in our next article, Making Font Choices.

The purpose of the “Open the Doors” campaign is to raise the final funds needed to complete construction of their lobby and foyer.

The final logo is designed with a variety of media in mind. Its crisp shapes and limited color pallete make it easy to use in print, on the web, or (in our case) on a mug.

It’s ridiculous to think of buying a pristine vehicle that looks pretty, but isn’t going anywhere.

Now suppress all those bad car shopping memories for a couple more minutes, while we shift gears on this illustration. Graphic design without good typography is like a car without tires. It’s non-negotiable. Dare I say, it’s where the rubber meets the road?

Graphic design is visual communication. Every design has a specific message to convey, and almost without exception that message will be found in type.

Well-executed type can carry a design on its own, without the need for photography or illustration. The form of the letters, their spacing and placement all have tremendous potential to add emotional meaning to a page.

Designers wrestle with fonts and software to create visual harmony between the very literal message of the words themselves and the subjective emotional message of the design. And when it works, it’s a beautiful thing.

Recently, we had the privilege of designing a flyer for Grace Bible Church of Menifee, California for an upcoming sermon series. What I love about this piece is that there are no images (unless you count the logo shapes). Big, bold letters and intense colors get right to the point and focus the viewer’s attention on the sayings of Jesus.

I hope you’ve enjoyed this very brief introduction to typographic design and its power to communicate thoughts and emotion. Until next time!

Once we finished passing it around the office and chuckling, we sobered up enough to proofread our own work a bit more carefully.

I kept it around as a humorous reminder that there’s no substitute for proofreading. Spell check won’t warn you if you use the wrong word. And typos have a sneaky way of showing up right after you print something.

So double check your spellng, everone!

And a very Mary Christmas.

A cutout image can take a dull or average design and give it that extra something special. It can increase your visual impact by giving viewers one clear point of entry for their eyes, simplifying the amount of information they must take in at once.

Overlapping elements on a page can also add depth and dimension.

Here's an example.

You can see in these side by side images how removing the background of the subject reduces the visual noise, simplifies the design, and makes it feel more unified. Overlapping the child on top of the letters gives it some depth, and adds more pop!

Here’s another example of how you might use this on the web, to break of out of the box.

So next time you need some more pop (and you’re not thirsty), a cutout image might be just the thing.

*For readers outside the Midwest United States, the word “Pop” loosely refers to soft drinks and can be used synonymously with “coke” and “soda.” Here’s a post about this fact if you’re interested or in need of a laugh.

One of our less ordinary tasks recently was to recreate da Vinci’s historic “Last Supper” as a theatre backdrop. It was used in the latest production of God’s Masterpiece at Bethel. This passion play is likely the biggest event that our church does each year.

The process involved painting over the original image in Photoshop and recreating some of the outdoor scene though the doors and windows. The final piece was about 30 feet wide and 9 feet tall and printed on white fabric.

Here’s a few photos of what it looked like in place. Special thanks to Francisco Montes for sharing these shots.

Remember, the designs we post are intended to serve as “idea starters.” We can customize any of them into banners, welcome cards, bulletin covers, or anythings else you might need. Give us a call—we are ready to help.

See the new Easter designs here.

The administrators selected a model that features a video monitor mounted onto a modern, metal frame. The frame also neatly hides all the monitor wires, creating a clutter-free presentation.

Our designers strove for a look that communicated the school’s strong forward vision and passion for excellence. Oh, and did we mention the school color is orange?

The final result is a unique blend of technology and eye-catching design that will, we trust, send a strong message to both potential teachers and prospective school families.

As we brainstormed on ways that get across the idea of always prepared, we finally landed on a pocket knife, and did a little graphic wizardry to give it a funny twist.

Graphic Design is about conveying a specific message to a targeted audience. Of course, clarity of that message should be paramount; but beyond clarity, designers aspire to communicate the message in a memorable way. Doing something out of the ordinary (or even shocking!) can be a great way to make the message stick.

Hope this piece put a smile on your face—I know it did for me.