How do you choose the right fonts? [Awesome font]

Source : Net magazine

Legibility, accessibility, flexibility … when it comes to fonts, it’s not as simple as picking something that looks nice. Seven designers share their approaches

Mindy wagner - Senior designer, Viget, mindywagner.net

I keep a running list of fonts I’d like to use some day, and when a new project comes up, I revisit it to see if there’s a good it. Lately I’ve been loving Adobe’s Typekit integration. It’s great for exploring a range of options. You can test a typeface fully and make a better case as to why clients should pay for a font. It makes the purchasing decision feel like less of a gamble

Alastair Campbell - Accessibility director, Nomensa, alastairc.ac

In terms of accessibility, there  is some general advice that certain typefaces – like Verdana and  Tahoma – are designed to be readable. However, it is what you do with it that counts. Don’t use too many typefaces in one page, don’t capitalise everything, use good contrast colours, and avoid moving text. If you aim for good readability for all, you are unlikely to create accessibility barriers

Jessica Hische - Lettering artist and type designer, jessicahische.is  

The first thing I do is ask myself: what kind of content do I have the most of? If it’s mostly paragraph text, I’ll start with a workhorse text face (something that works well at text sizes and comes in enough weights and styles). If my site is mostly imagery and I just need a font for captions and
headline, I’ll look for those kinds of fonts first. Generally, I’m always after something that is well made (by a skilled type designer and either created for the web or adapted well for the web) and stylish. If it utilises bleeding-edge browser capabilities (like allowing me to access OpenType features), awesome, but it has to look good in worst-case-scenario situations as well

Kai Brach - Web designer, OffScreen brizk.com

In order to provide a rounded experience to readers of my print magazine and visitors to my website alike,I’ve chosen the same fonts for online and
offline. The initial selection was made with cross-platform availability in  mind, specifically looking for a very versatile set, with many weights and styles that give me a number of options in the different use cases (for example, Regular for white on black, and Light for black on white).

Sophie shepherd - Senior designer, Ushahidi sophieshepherd.com

I evaluate fonts from two perspectives: emotional and technical. On the emotional side, I find   font that ‘feels’ right with the content. Do the letterforms set the right mood? Is it easy to read in the context it will be used? Once I have a few options that fit the bill, I test them technically with questions like: How do they perform across multiple devices? What service is loading them in, and does that jive with the other fonts we are using? Is there room in the budget? Do we need to support multiple languages? How large is the font, and how will that  affect performance? It’s rare that a font passes every single test, so it’s always good to prioritise them based on the project’s needs.

David Hughes - Digital product designer, Monotype monotype.com

I’m not going to lie – I find choosing type for screen really challenging. There are so many variables to consider, as well as influencing factors that are way beyond your control as a designer. What type of screen will people be reading your content on? What operating system will they be running? What speed is their connection? Bloody hell, even screen brightness is a factor. The best advice I can give is: get out of drawing tools and start prototyping,
either by hand or with tools like Typecast. Test your prototype in as many different places as possible. Load it up on a bad mobile connection to see the impact when your web fonts don’t load. Set appropriate fallbacks and of course, choose typefaces that were designed (or updated) for modern screen use. Eric Gill didn’t create that typeface for your shiny Retina display

Inayaili de león persson - Lead web designer, Canonical yaili.com

As an in-house designer, I have to follow our brand guidelines and design patterns, so there isn’t much I can do in terms of which font I’ll use for the next project! It’s an interesting
challenge, and something I now don’t really think about. Our font has so much personality and the different weights make it versatile for different solutions.

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