Three people this week have asked my opinion on what font is best for a particular project so I thought I would share some of the basics of fonts with you – which type to use when.

Very generally, for documents that will be read from a printed medium – flyer, magazine, newspaper – a serif font such as Times New Roman, Courier or Georgia is best. Serif fonts are the ones where each letter has little ‘feet’.

For documents that are more likely to be read on a computer – websites, ebooks, blogs, emails – sans serif (without feet) fonts such as Arial, Verdana and Tahoma are the best. Serif fonts on a computer screen can tend to look a little blurry and people with less than perfect eyesight may have trouble reading them.

Of course, sometimes you will want a specific font that matches your style, brand and image. Generally, cursive fonts such as Monotype Corsiva will be considered elegant; handwriting fonts such as Kristen or Lucida Handwriting give a fun, child-like feel; fonts that lean to the right imply something that is fast or energetic; Comic Sans is something more relaxed or fun; strong bold fonts such as Impact or Broadway imply… well, bold or impacting.

There are no hard and fast rules but these are more general guidelines that seem to be universally accepted.

Here’s to your success in business…

Donna-Marie

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