Decorative Fonts

I use to go crazy with decorative fonts. Why use a boring familiar font when there are so many more exciting options I figured. One of the first things I learned while studying graphic design however, was that decorative and crazy fonts need to be used sparingly. They have there place and can be effective at certain times but in general they are going make your design look less professional so it’s usually best to avoid them. Here are a few reasons why decorative fonts spell trouble for your designs:

1) They are hard to read – It’s just a fact that these fonts are more difficult for our eyes to recognize words and sentences. Since design is all about communication, you’re shooting yourself in the foot if you make it difficult for the words to be understood. You might be able to get away with this if you use the font sparingly but never use a crazy font for a large chunk of text.

2) They draw to much attention to themselves – Yes, you want your design to attract attention and stand out but a decorative font can distract from your message and what the words actually say. A good design will attract attention through other more subtle means.

3) They rarely are well designed – Fonts themselves are actually designed and it’s pretty safe to say that 99% of all the decorative fonts out there are poorly designed. Well designed fonts are built to be quietly pleasing to the eye and usually have similarities or patterns that can be seen throughout there characters which make the text seem well balanced.

4) They quickly tell people that you’re not a professional – Think about it. How many big time adds and marketing items have you seen with decorative fonts? Using crazy fonts is more or less just a cheap trick to try to make something look more exciting then it is and it usually screams out that the rest of the design can’t stand on its own.

As you can see it’s normally best to stick with fonts that are well established and time tested. Helvetica Neue, Baskerville, Futura, and Garamond are some great examples and there are plenty of others that I’ll cover in later entries. As a general rule just be sure your design doesn’t rely on the font to attract attention and you’re designs will look much more professional.