Fonts: Serif vs. San Serif

What font should be used and WHY use that particular one?

There are hundreds, if not thousands of font families available. All of them have some distinct quality that makes them different from the others. But why are there so many and how does a designer choose the "best" one for a layout?

The fact is that many of these typfaces are just some artist's creative expression. Some fonts were created just for the sake of taking some artistic license with the alphabet. For some, they serve no better purpose than "looking pretty," or "awesome," or just plain different.

But for the designer, typesetter or artist, the main point of ANY font is to be read and the reader get some meaning for the characters. Of course, letters, words, sentences and paragraphs can have literal meanings, but, a clever designer can imbue more subtle messages in selection, use, and placement of text. It is only a secondary consideration that a designer would choose a typeface for it's "decorative" appearance. Understand, I'm not suggesting that a decorative font should never be used. But the adornment of a layout is NOT the most important use for text in a document.

I had a design teacher that insisted that the so called decorative fonts have no place legitmate page layouts, but I disagree. What I believe, and what I practice is that a typeface should be carefully selected and used in very specific applications. As I said, it must be READ first, and then decorate second.

Putting aside the "decorative" fonts, I want to point out the best uses for serif and sans serif fonts. Serifs, in most fonts, have a purpose that has nothing to do with decoration. In a page or paragraph containing muliple lines of text, the serif at the top and bottom of the line help keep the eye "tracking" along the line. With out the serif "leading" the eye, the reader tends to wander off of the line, skipping up or down, playing havoc with the comprehension of what is being read. It's not that a page of sans serif CAN'T be read, but the serifs make it EASIER to be read. And the easier text can be read, the more of the contents is retained in the mind.

Large blocks of text have a LOT of detail, meant to be remembered. It is in these blocks that serifs have the most purpose.

However, there are appropriate places in a layout where sans serif typfaces not only work, but work best in some applications. These would be in headlines, section and chapter headings and similar places. Do you remember the FIRST letters you had to learn and memorize when you learned your ABCs? They were plain, block letters, made with lines as simple as a letter could be made. The "A" was just two lines meeting at a peak and a short cross bar. The "B" was a straight vertical line and two half circles. It was the alphabet at it's most basic shape. If a word is meant to be read quickly and with no hesitation, a good, block letter, sans serif font is the FASTEST typeface the mind will recognize. That is because this style is our earliest experience with the written language. All other typfaces are derived from this one. (including the script and other decorative fonts)

So on posters and billboards, designed to be quickly read and comprehended in passing, the main headlines tend to be sans serif. "SALE!" "Clearance" "Buy Now!" The desinger intends these words to stand out, attract attention and be remembered. There ARE other tricks and methods, such as using boldface and italics, but the sans serif letter is the most basic.

Section and chapter headings serve a similar purpose. They are meant to help the reader, either, begin to set his mind to what is to come, or to help the reader navigate to the part of the document in which he may have a certain interest.

Serifed letters CAN work in these cases, but the particular typface must still be chosen well. Serifs in headline blocks of text CAN distract the reader.

That last pargraph brings to mind the more decorative typfaces. As long as the text can be read, and does not distract from the message, these fonts do have a place. For example, they might help express a mood, memory or other subliminal message. A company name in fancy, cursive font can work very well for a nail salon, romantic getaway or similar business. Old Western letters can evoke a period of American history for a rodeo, horse rental stable or old Western film revival. Other typefaces evoke other periods or cultures, like Old English, American Colonial, Victorian, even Middle Eastern and Asian. In the appropriate place, these can serve the designer very well, as long as they serve the PRIMARY purpose of legibility.

There are a LOT of fonts, out there that almost NEVER work except to make the meaning more difficult to extract. Sometimes, this is done on purpose. I'm thinking, specifically of some of the posters of the psychedelic, hippie period of the late sixties and early seventies. In many of these layouts, the designers INTENDED for the reader to pause and consciously extract the meaning, one letter at a time. It is that extra effort that the reader put into interpreting the poster that made some of those designs so interesting from a historical standpoint. But this kind of effort is almost never put out by most readers. So, if the designer wants a clear message imparted and REMEMBERED, then the best font is an EASY one that works in it's proper place and time.

Like the placement, color and arrangement of all the other elements in a layout, the designer has to make a careful choice of the right font to use.

luv,

vince