How to choose a font?
Fonts can make or break a piece of content. Although there are no set defined rules and rules are meant to be broken; there are some things a non-designer can keep in mind to make their design/text look as if it’s done by a professional. I am not a visual design or typography expert, but these are some little things I learnt about fonts in my design college and experience:
Fonts are like the personality for your content.
The right font can really make your text shine. And wrong ones can do as much damage. Think of choosing the font as if you’re choosing the personality of your content. Think of the words that describe the personality you want and then choose your font. For example, Baskerville gives an old school trustworthy vibe, Lato gives a reliable new age kinda vibe. There are alot of fancy fonts designed to give a certain personality, but it’s always advised to go for something simple and versatile.
Also, your font need to match your brand image. The font you select needs to go with your brand image which means all your branding material like logo, brand font, etc. needs to match with your text font you choose.
Serif/Sans, the debate is never ending.
Although, there is no rule as to where to use sans vs serif, the norms state that long form serious reading in print like newspapers, books, journal articles, research papers usually have serifs and everything digital has sans serif. A reason for this also that serifs were the originally printed fonts on the printing press (the serifs give a feel of continum to the letters in a word) and when computers first came into existence, making serifs on the screen was super difficult so the digital world began with sans serifs and it has stayed like that since. Hence, our eyes are used to seeing sans in digital and serif in print.
Display & Body fonts can be the same or different, depending on the personality you wanna have for your text.
Just imagine you have a regular email newsletter that you ship out as a blogger. Now think out the industry you are catering to: If it is something light and fun, a dynamic duo of fonts will be great but if it is something more serious, a reliable simple versatile font duo will be suitable. Mixing sans and serif is advisable, but keeping the personality in check is super important. If it is for digital, going for a simple serif for headings (display font is advidable) and sans for body text is advisable (if mixing both), otherwise a versatile sans serif is more advisable for digital, like one of the ones mentioned below.
Suggested web safe fonts for beginners will be:
For Sans Serif: Lato, Open Sans, Roboto (google material design font), Avenir, Helvetica & Arial (too common and done yet a classic), Calibiri, Franklin Gothic and Segoe UI.
For Serif: Perpetua, Palatino, Goudy Old Style, Garamond, Didot, Calisto MT, Bodoni MT and Baskerville.