Typography is quite simply, the art and technique of arranging type to make written language readable and appealing; the art of working with text. Typography involves selecting typefaces, point size, line length, line spacing and letter spacing, which are aspects that play a very important role in magazine designing.
The most common types of font can be categorised into Serif Fonts, Sans Serif Font and Display fonts.
Serif fonts have little strokes attached to the main part of the letter and can be commonly seen in print publications, like magazines and newspapers. Sans serif fonts on the other hand don’t have that extra stroke. This style is considered more clean and modern than serif fonts. It also tends to be easier to read on computer screens, smartphones and tablets.
Display fonts come in many different styles, like script, blackletter, all caps and just plain fancy and are best for small amounts of text like titles, headers and graphic-heavy content.
Moving forward with the research I understood it is essential to avoid using outdated and overused fonts such Comic Sans, Brush Script etc. as they don’t stand out and thereby fail at holding the audience’s attention.
The website fonts.google.com had a good collection of modern fonts for free that I could use during the designing process.
I analysed the typography used in Vogue magazine just to get an idea on how I should incorporate fonts effectively in my magazine as well.
For the masthead of the magazine they’ve used a custom Serif font called ‘Didot’ and the font colour is altered based on the colour palette of the particular issue and the cover art. What I found impressive is that this magazine doesn’t have a logo of its own, but uses the masthead for brand recognition, and has been quite successful at that.
It is evident through the straplines that Vogue follows the font hierarchy effectively to guide the reader’s eye to whatever is most important and blends Serif and Sans Serif fonts to give prominence to key words without changing font colours unnecessarily.
[Example of Font hierarchy and its application in designing. Source: Google]
Even line spacing and tracking has been used appropriately to give importance to key information. In this example, a larger font, a display font and more line spacing between the words has been used to highlight the contributors’ names.
They’ve aligned the text either to the left or centre or justified it and refrained from using fancy fonts for paragraphs which makes it easier for the readers to read. What I also noticed is that Vogue does not use complex script font faces nor does it use too many font faces. It is better to use two main fonts and one accent font for visual interest and personality. In this issue, the fonts used balance each other well with contrast, yet manage to compliment each other as well. They also share characteristics of the mood this magazine wants to create; something related to architecture.
The articles published on this issue do not keep widows or orphans and makes it easier on the reader’s eye when skimming through the said articles.
Through this research, I was able to get a better idea on typography that I should use in my magazine for it to be effective and reach out to the readers. I realised that Adobe Illustrator has more space for me to experiment with different fonts and select a suitable style for the magazine, from this research as well.
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