Hands on: Fonts of knowledge

In this article, we take a step back and look at what makes a printed document, such as a business report or an academic paper, look good and easy to read.

We’re going for results here, and will be making a few generalisations and skipping some fine distinctions. We apologise in advance for treading on any typographical toes.

Hold the font page
Let's start with a little font tutorial. Typefaces fall into four basic types – serif, sans serif, display and script. Serif fonts, such as Times New Roman and Georgia, have small cross strokes, or serifs, at the ends of the main stems.

As well as the usual curved design seen in the two fonts mentioned, serifs can also be flat (slab serif), or triangular (wedge serif). Sans serif typefaces, as anyone with a smattering of French will guess, don’t have these twiddly bits. Confusingly, sans serif is sometimes called grotesque or gothic.

Most people would assume the latter to be the kind of old English lettering used by mediaeval monks and modern heavy-metal bands, but that’s called blackletter. Display fonts can come with or without serifs, and are usually decorative or striking in some way.

They make for distinctive logos or short headings, but you wouldn’t want to try to read a book set in Wide Latin or Harlow. Finally, there are script fonts. Again, these are no good for body text but can be used effectively in leaflets, certificates, invitations and so on.

Fonts, like us, tend to come in families. Arial, which has been with us since Windows 3.1, comes in standard, bold, italic, bold italic and, in later versions, narrow, rounded and black. Note that these are all separate files and individually designed typefaces.

Although most word processors will thicken or slant the characters in a single-file font, this is a typographic crime. If you look closely at the italic and standard versions of Times New Roman, for example, you’ll see that many letters have completely different shapes.

In general, for printed documents set in single columns, it’s normal to set the body text in a serif font. The serifs lead the eye along the line on the printed page. By contrast, headings stand out better in a sans serif font. A contrasting sans serif font also looks good in boxouts and sidebars.

The key to choosing fonts is restraint – the fewer, the better. One typeface family for body text, with another for headings, sidebars, page headers or footers and so on. Alternatively, you can play it safe and stick to one family – or even one font – for everything.

One of my favourite books is entirely set in Herman Zapf’s Optima at different sizes – this has cunningly tapered strokes rather than serifs and seems to work in any size. As with display fonts, text set in all capital letters should be used sparingly. Anything more than a few words becomes difficult and wearying to read.

If there is a pressing reason to use upper case, then consider using small capitals. Some fonts are designed that way, but most word processors have this as a character formatting option for all fonts.

When active, any letters typed on the unshifted keyboard will appear in upper-case shapes, but smaller than shifted letters.

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