If there’s one overly underrated design element, it’s the power of type. The style, arrangement, and appearance of your text can make or break the visual appeal of your content.
Unfortunately, designers still make common typography mistakes that undermine their work’s effectiveness. From choosing the wrong font to poor line spacing, we’ll discuss five costly typography mistakes and offer tips on how to avoid them.
- Choosing the Wrong Font
The wrong font makes your message unclear, unattractive, and hard to read for your audience. For example, suppose you’re designing a law firm website and choose the Comic Sans font. It may look unprofessional and untrustworthy to your clients, undermining your credibility because Comic Sans is commonly used in children’s books or birthday party invitations. Similarly, say you’re designing a poster for a nightclub event and choose a traditional serif font. This font is typically associated with newspapers and academic journals, conveying the wrong vibe for a nightclub. Instead, a bold and modern sans-serif font is more appropriate to convey a sense of energy and excitement.
What message do you wish to convey with your design? Is it formal or informal? Serious or playful? Answering these questions may help you narrow down your font options. Likewise, consider your target audience and the font type they would likely respond to. For instance, you may need a more traditional and easy-to-read font if your audience is older.
- Using Multiple Fonts
Multiple fonts can be a great way to add visual interest and personality to your project, but you must be consistent to avoid a confusing and cluttered design. Using too many different fonts makes your design look busy and overwhelming. Instead, limit yourself to a few well-chosen options that pair well together. Too similar fonts are also difficult to distinguish between headings and body text. Choose fonts with different sizes and styles and use them consistently throughout the project to create a cohesive and unified design.
To use fonts consistently, consider their family, size, weight, and style, ensuring they pair well together and are easy to read.
- Ignoring Hierarchy
Hierarchy is the visual organization of elements in a design that create a sense of order and importance. Without it, your audience can’t understand your message or navigate the design effectively.
Giving all elements equal importance is a rookie mistake that may overwhelm the viewer as they navigate your site. Take a presentation slide with the same font size and weight throughout the project, for example. Viewers may have trouble knowing the most relevant points to the overall message, confusing them and misleading their focus. Establishing a clear hierarchy using different font sizes and weights guides the viewer’s eye and ensures they’re attentive to your message.
- Improper Font Scaling
Proper font scaling ensures your text is legible, readable, and attractive to viewers. However, using too small or too large fonts causes inconsistency and a lack of hierarchy. For instance, a font size that’s too small for mobile screens is difficult to read, while one that’s too large can overwhelm the viewer and take up too much space, creating a cluttered design. Similarly, developing a clear hierarchy and guiding your viewer’s attention may be difficult if all your headings and subheadings have the same font size.
Consider the medium and audience for your design to scale fonts properly. For example, a large font size is suitable in print design to ensure legibility, while a smaller one is more appropriate in a digital design.
- Poor Line Spacing
Line spacing/reading is the vertical space between lines of text, and proper leading improves readability, legibility, and overall content appeal.
When lines of text are too close to each other, they become difficult to read. On the other hand, if the spacing is too wide, readers may have trouble tracking the text from one line to the next. Similarly, different fonts require different line spacing to ensure text is readable and legible. For instance, a large font size needs more line spacing to prevent overcrowding the text, while a smaller font size requires less pacing to make the text more readable.
Pay attention to the overall layout and adjust the spacing to avoid these mistakes. You can also experiment with different leading options to get the optimal balance between legibility, readability, and aesthetics.
Avoid Text Overload
Good typography can set you apart in today’s highly competitive world, where attention spans are short, whether conveying a message, attracting customers, or promoting a product or service. And if you need a Sydney graphic designer, ensure you find one who pays attention to typography and has experience creating visually attractive designs that resonate with your target audience. Request a Revision Approve
