Knowledge is knowing . . . or knowing where to find out.
—ALVIN TOFFLER
WHO WOULD HAVE THOUGHT there was so much to know about fonts! This chapter will give you a (very) brief introduction to them. Some of you may be font experts, but for those who aren’t, here is a little rundown.
Like so many other details for creating easy-to-read materials, it is important to think about your readers when you choose a font. Are you writing for the general public or for people with more specific needs? Will your readers be mainly seniors? If so, the type will need to be relatively large. For people with developmental disabilities fonts need to be plain and large. People with dyslexia also need a plain font, with clear differences between ps and qs and bs and ds, such as Lexia (available for free from www.ktype.com/fontlexia.html), as people with learning disabilities often reverse letters. People with vision problems also need large print.
First, let’s look at two basic styles of font: serif and sans serif.
Serif fonts
Serif fonts have little tails at the ends of their letters. This is the most common
type of font for books and many other materials. People say that the
tails lead your eye along the line, making it easier to read continuous text.
Times New Roman is the name of one of the most widely used serif fonts.
It is the default font on most computers, so unless you have changed it, it is
probably what you see every time you switch on your computer.
This sentence is set in Times New Roman at 11 pt, the same size as the Palatino body text of this book.
If, when reading, you are unaware of the font being used, chances are it is a serif font. They are for the most part unobtrusive. The original Times font was designed in 1932 for The Times newspaper of London, England.
The other aspect of a serif font is the weight of its strokes. Each letter has thicker and thinner strokes. In old-style serif fonts, the variations of thickness are on the diagonal, imitating the strokes that would have been made by scribes using broad-nib pens.
Here are some other older serif fonts, all in 11-point:
Garamond Baskerville Goudy Bodoni