Font Choosing for Creative Design Writing

When it comes to being creative, nothing works better than the little details that spark our imagination. Once upon a time we used to do so by doodling, writing in cursive, scribbling down ideas, etc. Nowadays some people may think that digitalization is stopping the process of being creative. They believe the programs, the screens, and the Internet kill our imagination.

• Top 8 Typography Trends

Yet, there are still ways to use the digital world to our advantage. The most obvious way is through access to information. Online you can find a lot of different choices of typography which you can use for your assignment as a student. So, how, then, we can pick a font for creative writing? Let’s find out.

The Fonts

Okay, what font do we use indeed does matter. The fonts were firstly developed with the intent to make the content easier to read. After all, some obscure font can distract the readers from what the words mean, for instance. Harder-to-read fonts were found to lead to better recollection, yet, we are sure that if the readers cannot actually read the text, they cannot recollect anything at all.

So, you’d need to be aware of how the particular fonts affect the reading experience of the target audience and also how they affect your writing experience. Choosing different fonts can have a difference on your feelings while writing. First, we are going to see how the main elements of the fonts make them work.

Readability

If a font is easy to read, it’s going to be easy to write in. For don’t we all read while writing? If you have some incredible inspiration right now, you’d find you are probably not reading anything at all. But generally incredible inspiration is hard to find. Most of the time we are working just with a bit of it or with none of it at all. Most of the time we are struggling to find words and develop our piece. In all of those instances we are reading as we write. Also, once you’ve finished, you’d probably also reread the material to see how it sounds. You’d look for various mistakes, repeated words, phrases that feel awkward, things to remove and add. You’d see whether you feel fine with the thing you’ve written.

So, when you are rereading, you can go for a font that is easier to read. This will allow you to put more emphasis on what the words mean rather than what exactly are those words. By doing so, you’d be able to feel the flow of writing.

Serif and Sans-Serif

The decorative strokes on some of the fonts are what makes a font serif. They are made to give some fancy look to the characters. It’s thought that they can be read more easily on print but not so on a digital device. Sure, some of the sources do use serif fonts and that is successfully so. Yet, the general principle remains unchanged.

Why is that so? Well, for the reason that digital reading devices have smaller area and lower resolution in comparison to printed readings. Thus, the simpler sans-serif fonts are better suited for such devices.

Line and Character Spacing

Okay, a no-brainer here – the closer the lines and characters are, the harder it is to actually read them. They make the page look messy and dense and they can actually lead to frustration when you are reading the content. But when they look cleaner and more well-spaced, this gives you a better reading and writing experience.

Clear Characters

Readability is hugely affected by how easy it is to tell one character apart from another. After all, you’d find it immensely frustrating to waste time trying to tell whether you should be reading something as an “e” or an “a”. So, you can do a simple text. Type “l|1” and make sure you can easily distinguish those characters with the chosen font.

Lines Lenght

Okay, you are probably not very sure this makes sense. But there are studies that tell us that the length of the lines affects how we experience reading and writing. It’s been shown that if the line length is over 75 characters a line, you’d have a harder time focusing on the words that are in the sentence. But when we are talking about a digital experience, you can go with 100 characters per line. This is due to the fact we are getting a bit of boost in focus and energy as we move to another line. So, making lines short makes the reader feel a lack of progress.

Still, make sure you aren’t putting too short of lines because this breaks the rhythm. If the reader feels the lines are too short, they’d be more stressed during reading. This can even lead to skipping lines. When you are rereading and editing, skipping lines may lead to you missing important elements and aspects that you wish to edit.

Feeling of the Font

Different fonts are associated with different feelings, even if it may not be obvious. Via different fonts you can provoke fun, formality, casualness, etc. Culture is also important in this regard – take Comic Sans in America, for example. So, when writing, choose only such fonts that have the same feeling as the one you are trying to provoke.

Your Font

Research shows that if the text is good-looking, your experience with reading and writing it will be good one, too. So, choose a font that you can easily read, that is optimized, that has the proper mood… but also that you like. Some writers share that certain font make them more productive. So, why not try it yourself and choose a font that you like to see how you experience writing now? Play around and find the one that suits you the best.

Conclusion

Creative writing is influenced by lots and lots of things (every writer will tell you so). Thus, when we engage in such an experience, we try to maximize the things that give us a good workflow and minimize the distractions and the procrastination. Yes, we know that sometimes picking the right font can seem like procrastination. But it’s worth giving it a go for it later can allow for a much better experience while writing and rereading to check for mistakes or changes where needed. Thus, try putting this on your ’to-do’ list to see how it works for you!