10 Solutions to Your Font Search Headaches

There are thou­sands of fonts out there. Some are beau­ti­ful­ly designed with del­i­cate curves and well-thought-out har­mo­ny between each let­ter­form. Oth­ers are near­ly illeg­i­ble, mak­ing the read seem like a typo­graph­ic maze, espe­cial­ly when used in a whole para­graph. In between, you’ll see just about every­thing imaginable.

Even for the expe­ri­enced design­er, the selec­tion of a type­face or a font is always a strate­gic, well thought-out process. Depend­ing on who your client is and what you’re try­ing to com­mu­ni­cate, cer­tain type­faces will work bet­ter over others.

If your busi­ness is in the grow­ing phas­es and you don’t have a design­er on staff, these next few tips will def­i­nite­ly give you the knowl­edge to make bet­ter font selec­tions. It may sound daunt­ing, but fear not! 

10 Solutions to your font Search headaches

1. Learn from research.

Find out what com­pa­nies with the same tar­get mar­ket are using — not to copy them but for inspi­ra­tion and an aware­ness of what can work. Even if you learn what you don’t like, it gets you clos­er to what you do. 

2. Free vs. paid.

There are plen­ty of good fonts that are free. But there are also very afford­able ones from pro­fes­sion­al type­face design­ers. A typeface/font can take months or years to design. Well-designed fonts con­sid­er how each char­ac­ter inter­acts with anoth­er. Some will include lig­a­tures (two or more let­ters joined as one sin­gle glyph) to pro­vide added leg­i­bil­i­ty and cus­tomiza­tion. Before you pur­chase be sure to read the license infor­ma­tion for its use before you buy.

Here are some great resources:
www.fonts.com
www.myfonts.com
www.émigré.com
www.fontsquirrel.com
www.creativemarket.com

3. Limit your fonts to three.  

Don’t use too many dif­fer­ent fonts in your brand’s visu­al com­mu­ni­ca­tion. It can over­whelm your audi­ence and cause them to lose inter­est. And you don’t want to con­vey dis­or­ga­ni­za­tion in your brands’ mes­sage. Once you have an idea about a type style, start com­par­ing the leg­i­bil­i­ty and visu­al flow between each let­ter to fur­ther whit­tle the choice down.

4. Test the font for spacing and size in paragraph form.

Be sure to check if there are any let­ters that have odd spac­ing between one anoth­er, as this will cre­ate a strain in read­ing flow. If it does, try your next choice of font. Then try the font in dif­fer­ent point sizes with­in a para­graph, to see if that makes it hard to read.

5. Create hierarchy with size. 

Gen­er­al­ly, it’s best to cre­ate hier­ar­chy con­sid­er­ing an order of impor­tance. For instance:
1. Title/headline
2. Sub-title
3. Para­graphs
4. Dis­claimers

Look for a type­face that has at least a bold, italic/oblique, and book weight to give you max­i­mum flex­i­bil­i­ty when cre­at­ing empha­sis in var­i­ous parts of the copy, ie: to cre­ate empha­sis on a title by using the bold font itself. Don’t man­u­al­ly bold or ital­i­cize the font, as doing so will decrease the care­ful­ly cal­cu­lat­ed forms in each let­ter and affect leg­i­bil­i­ty.

6. Don’t stretch it.

It’s almost like wear­ing an over­sized shirt—it’s clear when some­thing does­n’t look right, espe­cial­ly when a font is manip­u­lat­ed. You don’t want your view­er expe­ri­ence that.

7. Test the leading. 

The lead­ing is the line space between one line of text and the next line above or below each oth­er. Some pro­grams will allow you to increase or decrease this, but when you don’t have that option, it’s impor­tant to test it. Look for things like this: If one line has the descend­ing let­ter form “g” and the sen­tence below it has the ascend­ing let­ter “h” they should not over­lap, as it cre­ates a focal strain.

7. Test the leading.

The lead­ing is the line space between one line of text and the next line above or below each oth­er. Some pro­grams will allow you to increase or decrease this, but when you don’t have that option, it’s impor­tant to test it. Look for things like this: If one line has the descend­ing let­ter form “g” and the sen­tence below it has the ascend­ing let­ter “h” they should not over­lap, as it cre­ates a focal strain.

8. Print it out.

Select­ing the right font can be hard, espe­cial­ly if you have a few favorites. Step away from the com­put­er and print out sam­ples of a head­er and para­graph with each font that you have whit­tled it down to. View­ing it this way will often give you sur­pris­ing clar­i­ty on the best font pairing.

9. Color is your secret weapon.

Using a black font isn’t your only option. Not many think of col­or as an asset when select­ing type, but it is. Col­or is used to com­mu­ni­cate a mood, but it will also enhance your type. If you want to cre­ate a head­er, but you feel using a black font will be too bold for your mes­sag­ing, then incor­po­rate your brand col­ors and tie your visu­als togeth­er. Your back­ground col­or can also enhance your type, but be very cau­tious when using a light back­ground with a light type col­or, as these ele­ments may get lost together.

10. Get feedback.

Be selec­tive with who you get input from. Hon­esty is crit­i­cal, so be sure to count on col­leagues or friends that will give you their true opin­ion. It’s prob­a­bly wise to have no more than three peo­ple review your choic­es so you don’t get lost in a soup of opinions.

Typog­ra­phy is a very pow­er­ful tool. Don’t be afraid to embrace it! Although find­ing the right font may feel frus­trat­ing, it’s well worth the time you spend research­ing and eval­u­at­ing the best fit for your com­pa­ny or project. Our tips will help you make bet­ter choic­es for any future projects you may have — from a sim­ple office memo to your brands’ visu­al com­mu­ni­ca­tion across the board.

Now that you know about these 10 solu­tions, make your­self some tea or cof­fee and enjoy the process! 

I’d love to hear from you, do you have any sources to share for great fonts?