Different projects call for different type choices and combinations. Are you working on a book? Is the book a novel, or is it a coffee table book that includes lots of pictures and explanatory text? Are you working on a brochure, a catalog, a magazine, a poster, an invitation? Each project has different requirements as to readability, legibility, and impact. Your first task is to determine which part of your project needs readability, which needs legibility, and which needs impact.

• The lengthiest text needs to be the most readable.
• The text that people will skim through, such as items in a catalog or headlines in a newsletter, needs to be the most legible.
• The text that’s designed to catch someone’s eye in a hurry and create an instant impression needs to be the most impactful.

One project might include all three of these possibilities. For instance, you might have an annual report that has lots of boring copy that you hope people will read, many headlines they’ll skim through to find what they want, and some brave text here and there (like on the cover or section heads) that will grab their attention in the right way—”right” meaning in a way that’s appropriate to that particular audience.

So let’s begin by looking at some guidelines—then we’ll branch out from there.

READABILITY
Readability refers to how easy it is to read long blocks of text. The more text, the less you want the typeface to grab the reader’s interest; the more unbroken the text, the more invisible the typeface should be. For instance, in a novel a reader wants to get to the end of the novel without being interrupted by quirky letterforms; we don’t want anything to take us out of the story and make us think of something as silly as the interesting shape of the letter g.

I once read a novel that was trying to be very intense and heavy, but I couldn’t take it seriously. For days I wondered why I was feeling a disconnect between the words and my reaction to them. It finally dawned on me: The book was set in Souvenir, a casual, friendly face. The unspoken impression the type gave me was in total contradiction to the words. It was very disconcerting.

The most invisible typefaces are in the oldstyle category, possibly because when that typeface structure was set in hot metal in the 1500s (based on ancient Roman letterforms), there wasn’t anything except books to use the type for—no billboards, no magazine ads, no packaging. Whether it’s because over the centuries we have become most familiar with oldstyles or because the actual structure of the letterforms is more conducive to the reading process, oldstyles turn out to be the easiest to read in long blocks of printed text.

[For more on type categories, see “Choosing Type Combinations,” You can find the article at http://www.layersmagazine.com/category/columns—Ed.]

In my computer books, my point is to communicate clearly. Some of what I have to communicate is technical and complicated, so the last thing I want to do is make the typeface obnoxious. I use Garamond, Warnock, or Jenson, and my preference is still toward certain versions of Garamond as being the most readable face on the planet.

But in my book Sweet Swan of Avon: Did a Woman Write Shakespeare?, I allowed the oldstyle font, Brioso Pro (a gorgeous Robert Slimbach font from Adobe), to use some of the special ligatures. I realize they can be slightly distracting, but I allowed them for three reasons: (1) The book being on a historical topic, I appreciated the historical flavor the ligatures added to the look. (2) The book isn’t a novel—it includes a vast collection of documented data so I intentionally broke up the text into digestible chunks so a reader can feel comfortable skimming through the pages and dropping in anywhere. Because the text is in these smaller chunks, I could get away with the added attractions. (3) The subtle distinction of these special letterforms helps make the book less intimidating to read. Thus I was willing to accept the distraction of the ligatures.

Design for the audience
Starting with the premise of classic oldstyle for lengthy copy, expand your text face options depending on the project. Is it a formal project, such as an annual report or scholarly tome? Use the most invisible typeface you can find. Is it a newsletter? You can get away with a typeface with a little more character. Is it a brochure? Depending on who it’s for, you can experiment with quite a range of text faces and even move into sans serif fonts because the columns are typically narrower in a brochure.

In this magazine you’re reading, the body copy is sans serif (Cronos, also a Robert Slimbach font). Now, you might think that a magazine has lots of text and should qualify for an oldstyle font in the body copy, but this particular magazine has many small blocks of text broken up with lots of graphics, which means you don’t need a typeface as invisible as Garamond. Notice also that the text you’re reading has generous amounts of linespacing, which makes the blocks of sans serif much more inviting than usual.

Also, the small, open sans serif gives Layers a very trendy, upscale look, which is extremely important in its market and is an acceptable trade-off for “perfect” readability. A magazine such as Scientific American will never be set in trendy, small, sans serif with lots of leading because it just wouldn’t be appropriate for their particular audience, which includes a lot of people who believe that to be truly scientific, articles must look slightly dull and pedantic. My book Sweet Swan of Avon has been criticized by professional scholars because it doesn’t look scholarly (which, frankly, to me is a compliment, and professional scholars aren’t my audience).

We all have perceptions of what certain types of information should look like, and as a designer you need to take that into consideration. It’s a great exercise to take one particular piece, say a magazine article, and design it to fit a variety of magazines where each has a different market and different expectations from their readers. The magical design feat is to make something look terrific while staying within the boundaries of expectation.

LEGIBILITY
While readability refers to how easy it is to read lengthy text, legibility refers to how easy it is to instantly recognize short bursts of text such as headlines, freeway signage, catalog entries, etc. It turns out that sans serif faces are the most legible for short bursts of text. Apparently the clean and distinctive letterforms make it easier for the words to go straight into our brains when we need to get small amounts in a hurry.

Among sans serifs, you can find very strict, simplified forms, or ones that have a more casual edge to them by adding curves and quirky characteristics. As with readability, however, the quirkier it is, the less legible (that’s why you don’t see freeway signage set in Peignot). The extreme light weights and bold weights of sans serifs are also less legible.

How often do you see a freeway sign set in Peignot?

All caps
Remember, type set in all caps reduces the legibility and the readability of any text. We don’t read letter by letter—we read in groups. Entire words go into our eyes, straight to our brains. We recognize those words by their shapes. Once you put words in all caps, all their shapes are the same and we have to go back to reading letter by letter.

I’m not suggesting that you never use all caps—just keep the reduced legibility in mind. Sometimes, of course, your design calls for those rectangular forms of words in all caps, and you know they’re not impossible to read. If you can put into words why that rectangular form is important to your design and why it’s okay to accept a little less legibility/readability, then carry on with all caps.

IMPACT
For the display text that constitutes the main elements of something like a book cover, poster, invitation, brochure, etc., it can be even more daunting to find the right typeface because it’s that typeface that’s going to set the mood. Jeepers, what a responsibility! One thing you must do is trust yourself—you know what feeling is evoked from a particular typeface. Your gut reaction to a chosen font is probably the same as that of your audience.

But what I encourage you to do is experiment beyond your initial reaction to type choices. For instance, perhaps you have to create a poster for a local gym. You might initially think you need a macho, thick, strong, bully face. But today, gyms cater to all sorts of different clientele—one might be limited to just women, just gay people, just mothers and pregnant women, just macho males, just seniors, etc. What is it about this gym that the owner wants to emphasize? The friendly atmosphere, the female-ness, the high energy, the low energy? Find the essence of what you want to evoke, not the surface cliché.

A high-tech brochure doesn’t need those awful “computery” fonts, the ones that look like computer type on old PCs from the ’70s. Apple, one of the highest tech of all high-tech companies, for decades used a slightly condensed version of an oldstyle Garamond font originally created in about 1530. Rather than evoke a “computer” look, they went for a look that captured classic elegance, elitism, stability. Lots of white space helped, too.

High-tech, high-end products tend to have a crisp, clean, sharp look (that’s one reason the Microsoft logos look rather dorky—they’re soft and blobby). Children’s products tend to be colorful and energetic; new age products tend to have warm, earthy tones; scientific and scholarly works tend to be very conservative. But you already know that—what you need to do is take those ideas that you already know and experiment with typefaces that convey that feeling in slightly new or different ways.

In praise of platitudes
Keep in mind, however, that sometimes the obvious is the best solution. With platitudes, everyone knows exactly what you’re talking about: blood dripping off the type on a horror poster, a lovely script for a wedding invitation, grungy type for a skateboarding poster. There’s a certain comfort for the reader in knowing what to expect; so don’t try to make everything so new and different that the basic meaning gets confused. Things become clichés precisely because they work so well.

GENERAL TYPE GUIDELINES
Below is an encapsulation of the general guidelines for the basic categories of fonts that I mentioned in last issue’s article, “Choosing Type Combinations,” and how to apply them to projects.

Oldstyles are great for long, uninterrupted text such as in a book or lengthy articles in magazines. The more invisible (the fewer quirks), the more sedate will be the overall impression. The smaller amounts of continuous text you have in the project, the more you can use quirkier oldstyles.

Moderns are less desirable for lengthy text because those thin strokes at body copy sizes (9 to 12) get too small to see or print clearly; they’re best used when you can set them a little larger than body copy or use them in small amounts for special text. Set large, moderns have a stunning classic beauty.

Slab serifs are a little too heavy for lengthy text, but create a good strong impression for smaller amounts of text such as newsletters or brochures. When set really large, slab serifs can be gorgeous and classy and make strong statements. Experiment with the light weights and heavy weights in combinations.

Sans serif, as I mentioned earlier, is terrific as headlines, signage, bullet copy, etc. It can also be used for short blocks of body copy, especially if you add extra linespace and try to keep the lines a little shorter in length. You might have an individualist desire to set a novel in sans serif, but I suggest you control yourself if you want people to actually read it. Save your anarchy for something else.

Scripts and decoratives are like cheesecake—absolutely divine in small doses. But these fonts are the most fun to play with! And because they’re so powerful in small doses, they’ll create a strong impact with minimal use. You might use a decorative font in your main title—try picking it up again in initial caps or special headlines as an element of repetition and unity.

EXPERIMENT
Once you have an idea of how to narrow down your choices, experiment. Go to someplace like Veer.com or MyFonts.com where you can choose categories of type, and then enter your own text and point size so you can see how different faces might look.

For body copy, take a paragraph of text from your project, set it in at least five different fonts, and narrow it down to a couple that you like. Then using those two or three faces, experiment with the point size and leading values. Even such miniscule changes as tenths of a point in both font size and leading values can change the look of the piece. Don’t rely on your monitor when making a text face decision—you must print out the samples before you make a final choice.

Make a decision as to what part of your design will set the tone, the impact. It might be the title, or the headlines, or the body copy. For instance, in a lengthy article that you want people to read, start with the body copy and its settings. From there, work with the guidelines in “Choosing Type Combinations” to find typefaces that will combine beautifully with your chosen face, plus support the essence of what you want to convey. For a poster, experiment with fonts for the largest text on the page before you begin to make decisions for the smaller text. Choose some fonts you might not think are appropriate and see what happens.

There’s no quick-and-easy solution to font choices, and having thousands of fonts to choose from doesn’t make it any easier. Keep in mind, however, that there isn’t one perfect choice, but thousands of perfect choices. With a conscious eye and thoughtful combinations, your problem won’t be to find the perfect solution, but which one of your many perfect solutions to choose for the final piece.

Sometimes “overwhelming” is the right choice. Font is Fragile.

CREDIT FOR SILHOUETTE ILLUSTRATION IN POSTER: ©ISTOCKPHOTO/BRETT LAMB

Remember those guidelines about combining fonts—the most surprising combinations can be just what you need. Fonts are Profumo and Ministry Script.

How about a nice ’70s look, when the only typeface designers would use was Helvetica? Font is Helvetica Neue UltraLight.

Sometimes the most obvious solutions can work. One font looks like a designer’s handwriting (Viktorie) and the other font is based on the type used in the first Bible in print (Ferox) in 1454.

First, follow the Holy Font Guideline #1 when choosing different typefaces for a piece: Concord or contrast, but don’t conflict.

That is, either stick with different styles in the same typeface family (concord), or choose completely different faces (contrast). Do not choose typefaces that are similar (conflict).

To feel confident about which font combinations concord, contrast, or conflict, it helps to first train your eye to categorize typefaces. We can break down type families into six broad (very broad) categories:

1. Oldstyle: Slanted serifs, a moderate transition between the thick and thin strokes of a letterform, and a diagonal stress (the angle of a line drawn through the thinnest parts of curved letters).

2. Modern: Thin, horizontal serifs, a radical difference between the thick and thin strokes of a letterform, and a vertical stress.

3. Slab serif: Thick, horizontal serifs, little to no difference between the thick and thin strokes, and a vertical stress.

4. Sans serif: No serifs, and most often monoweight (the strokes are pretty much one thickness).

5. Script: Anything with a flowing, handwritten style.

6. Decorative: Whimsical and fun. Grunge faces are a subcategory in that they are definitely decorative, but lawless and edgy, breaking the rules, trashy and trendy.

CONCORD
For a concordant look, choose one type family from any category. Use only the fonts from this one family. As you can see in Figure 1, a concordant look can be quite elegant if you don’t use a lot of contrast; it stays rather sedate and comfortable.

Fig. 1: This example uses the Bauer Bodoni family, a modern typeface—Bauer Bodoni Regular, Italic, and Bold.

Now, if you want a juicier yet still concordant feeling, you can add a little contrast, such as a contrast of size or weight, as shown in Figure 2 (more about contrast in a minute).

Fig. 2: Using the same copy and type family, in this example I merely emphasized the differences.

Limiting yourself to one type family is always safe. It can actually be a fun challenge to create something provocative from a limited type family. But typically we tend to use more than one family in any design.

CONFLICT OR CONTRAST?
The trick to combining different faces is to choose fonts from different categories. In other words, don’t combine typefaces from the same category—don’t use two different sans serifs on the same page, or two moderns, or two scripts, or two oldstyles, or two decoratives. Choosing from different categories gives you a basic contrast of structure (how the typeface is built). The reason this is a fail-safe guideline is because of Holy Font Guideline #2: It’s the similarities in typefaces that create conflict. When you see a designed page with a font combination that makes you twitch, I guarantee it’s because of the similarities—not the differences.

Take a look at these three examples, and listen to your eyes.

Fig. 3: This is a concordant combination with italic in the same font (Brioso Pro) for emphasis.

Fig. 4: These two oldstyles (Brioso Pro and Palatino) in the same point size have too many similarities, creating conflict.

Fig. 5: This oldstyle (Brioso Pro) contrasts well with the bold sans (Myriad Pro Black)—the structures are very different, the stroke weights are very different, and the stresses are very different.

Figure 3 uses the regular roman font of an oldstyle family with the italic of the same family as a subtle emphasis. Nice and concordant, your eyes are at peace.

In Figure 4, can you feel your eyes twitch as they notice the change in font? Your eyes twitch because they know it’s a different font, but it’s so similar that they can’t quite figure out what’s going on (is it really different? is it the same? is it trying to tell me something? am I missing the point? aacckk!). So it’s a little befuddling and annoying and you quickly scurry on just to get away from the confusion.

In Figure 5, your eyes feel much more comfortable and peaceful because they understand the change in font. It’s clear, it’s obvious, your eyes know what’s going on, and they feel secure. Listen to your eyes.

CONTRAST
The key to strong, bold, clear communication is in the differences, the contrast. Start with fonts from different categories; for instance, a sans serif headline with oldstyle body copy. That’s the first place to begin, but it’s rarely enough. In Figure 6, you see a sans serif headline with an oldstyle body copy—fonts from two different categories. It’s a good start for a combination, but in the example there are too many other similarities causing conflict: their sizes are similar, their weights are similar, and their forms (italic vs. roman; caps vs. lowercase) are similar. So you need to juice up the contrast, as in Figure 7.

Fig. 6: Here we have a good combination of structure with a head from the sans serif category and the body copy from the oldstyle category. But it’s not enough.

Fig. 7: The contrast of structure is the best place to start, but we need to strengthen the contrast. Here I used a heavier weight in the head and a lighter weight in the body copy.

You see, Holy Font Guideline #3 is about contrast: Don’t be a wimp. Don’t contrast semibold with bold, or light with regular. Don’t contrast 10-point type with 11-point type. If it’s not going to be the same (concord), then dammit, make it different (contrast).

You might have a modern face as a large headline, and choose the body copy from another category, such as slab serif. These two families have great contrasts in their stroke structures and serif shapes, but because they’re both serif faces, you’ll need to emphasize their contrasts. Moderns are particularly gorgeous when set large so everyone can admire their elegant structures, so take advantage of that.

Fig. 8: “The Shakespeare Papers” is in a modern font (Didot), set horizontally, with several short vertical body copy segments in a slab serif (Clarendon).

So how exactly do you emphasize the differences? There are six forms of typographic contrast, many of which I’ve alluded to already:

1. Structure: The structure of a typeface is how it’s built. Imagine you have to create a typeface out of the materials in your office. A font made out of pencils would have a different structure than a font made out of printer cables or staples. Whatever you use creates its structure. The different categories of type each have different structures.

2. Size: You know what different point sizes are. Follow Holy Font Guideline #3 when combining sizes.

3. Weight: How thick the strokes are in a typeface determines its weight. It’s always good to have a couple of really heavy weights in your font collection.

4. Form: The form of a letter is its shape. For instance, a capital F has a very different form/shape from a lowercase f, even though they might have the same structure (same font, even). A capital F has a very different form from an italic f, even though, again, they might have the same structure.

An easy way to think of a contrast of form is italic vs. roman (which simply means type that is straight up and down), or all caps vs. lowercase.

A conflict of form would be two italic fonts used together, or a script with an italic, because they both have flowing, usually slanted forms. Two different faces both in all caps have potential for conflict.

5. Direction: I don’t mean a slanted direction, although that’s sometimes useful. Type automatically has a direction when set in lengthy headlines or narrow columns, for example. If you see a contrast of direction happening in your design, take advantage of it, emphasize it.

6. Color: Typographers have always referred to color in text, even when all the text is black. It refers to the impact of blocks of text. Squint at a page in a novel and you can see the even gray tone; in a newspaper, notice the darker colors of the headlines compared to the gray stories. You might call out words in the main text by using a different color, even if the “color” is a sans serif bold in black.

Looking back at Figure 8, you’ll see that I created or emphasized four different contrasts:

• Size: 40 point vs. 9 point (in the original graphic).
• Structure: Modern vs. slab serif.
• Direction: The heading is horizontal, while the small columns have a vertical emphasis.
• Color: A dark plum vs. gray.

To avoid a potential conflict in Figure 8, I used the warm color for the words that I wanted to catch the eye of someone skimming the page (warm colors attract the eye), thus emphasizing the headline. If I had used the warm color in the small body copy, it would conflict with the headline in that the small body copy would be calling attention to itself in one way (the dark plum), but the headline would be calling attention to itself because it’s so much bigger. Be careful that your contrasts themselves don’t conflict with each other!

Take a look at the beautifully designed headlines in this magazine. Put into words the contrasts the designer employed and it will become very clear exactly why the headlines are pleasing, dynamic, interesting, and communicate clearly: There are three lines of type—the title of the article, a subtitle, and the byline. In these three lines there are contrasts of size, weight, color, and form (lowercase vs. all caps). Make sure you can point out where each contrast is happening.

Take a particular look at the byline. When using caps vs. lowercase as a contrast of form, you run a risk when the smaller text is in all caps: The two pieces of text have the potential to conflict in that the larger type says, “Ha ha! I’m bigger!” and the smaller text says, “Well, you might be bigger, but I’m in all caps!” However, the designer of these particular headlines avoided that disaster by strongly emphasizing the size and weight differences so there’s no competition, plus he added letterspacing to the text in all caps to further emphasize the difference between it and the other two lines, especially the main title with its extra-tight letterspacing. Contrast is the key.

Now, if you’re really typographically astute, you’ll say, “But in those three lines of the article titles, there are two different sans serifs (Trebuchet and Cronos)! Doesn’t that break the Holy Font Guideline #1?” Well, yes it does, and it just goes to show you what a good designer can do with contrast. Take note.

LISTEN TO YOUR EYES
Look carefully at every great piece of design that catches your eye. Get in the habit of putting into words where the designer used contrast in the typography. Also notice pieces where the type is not so great—exactly what is the problem? Name it and you can fix it.

Remember, if you feel that the typefaces in your design conflict, take a look at what is similar—that is probably where your problems lie. If you absolutely must use the particular type combination that you’re working with (a corporate style sheet, for instance), emphasize the contrasts.

The other issue of conflict might be that you’ve used contrast, but the contrasts are competing with each other. Decide how you want to lead the reader’s eye around the page. Use contrast to do it, but always keep in mind the order in which you want information to be read. You, as designer, have almost complete control of a reader’s eye.

Also keep in mind that contrast doesn’t always mean big and heavy. It’s merely a reference to the elements around it. Small and thin might be the most appropriate and effective contrast on a field of empty white space; a small splash of red type might be exactly what you need amongst a lot of other text.

RULES? WHAT RULES?
Rules, of course, are made to be broken. The trick about breaking the rules is to be able to articulate in words why you’re breaking them—then break them with gusto. Don’t just break a rule a little bit, for heaven’s sake. If you’re going to be a maverick, then do it with glee, do it with panache. But that’s another story.