Afew days ago I ashamedly found myself taking one of those silly quizzes – the same kind that, when my friends share on Facebook that they are a Miniature Pincher in a “What Kind of Dog Are You?” quiz, leads me to roll my eyes and mentally tsk at how far we’ve fallen. Yet here I am, admitting to doing the exact same thing. But this one – What Font Are You? – I just couldn’t resist!

*insert your own eye roll here*

Unless you are an uber-nerd like I am, you’ve probably never given a second thought to fonts. But luckily for you, I have – because believe it or not, fonts matter!

4 Examples of Serif Fonts

4 Examples of Serif Fonts

There are 3 important factors to keep in mind when choosing a font:

  • Legibility – Serif vs. San Serif
  • Font Types/Personalities
  • Font Sizes

“Serifs” are those little lines along the edges of letters. The most commonly-used serif font is Times New Roman, created in 1931.

“Sans” literally means “without.” Sans Serif fonts are without those little lines. A prime example of a sans serif font is Helvetica. You’ve seen it on every single governmental road sign: “Speed Limit 55”,
“Yield to Pedestrians”, “Miami 63 miles”, all Helvetica.

4 Examples of San Serif Fonts

4 Examples of San Serif Fonts

While heavily debated by people who are larger uber nerds than I am, it is commonly accepted that serif fonts are preferred for printed text, while sans serif fonts are ideal for electronic text. If we, as business owners, put so much work into our copy, we wouldn’t want to lose readers because we picked a font that was hard on the eyes.

We also wouldn’t want to pick the wrong type of font. Referencing the font examples on the right, you wouldn’t use Papyrus when composing your resume, and you wouldn’t use Courier on Sally’s 1st birthday party invitations.

Take for example, Comic Sans. It is a font often seen in everything from advertisements, to email from friends, to notes on the community refrigerator at work, kindly asking you not to eat your coworkers’ food items. People tend to choose Comic Sans when they want to appear polite, cutesy, fun. In the professional world, however, Comic Sans makes a lot of people gag (myself included).

Just something to keep in mind.

To finish out our 3 factors, the importance of font size cannot be over-emphasized. All electronic text (like text on your website) should be a minimum font size of 13px. You know how special promotions always have that fine print at the bottom, that’s in an unbelievably small font size? That’s done on purpose because the advertisers know it’s hard to read! Make your font sizes nice and fat and large so that even your “Gam-Gam” wouldn’t have trouble reading it.

Don’t lose readers and potential customers because your message was lost in your font. Share your message with the world in a font type and size they will be happy to read.

Would an inappropriate font on a resume affect whether or not you would hire the applicant?

Amanda MiliAmanda Mili
Your Business, By Design
Ottawa, Ontario – Serving Canada and the U.S.
email: [email protected]
website: www.amandamili.com

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