Unnoticed Text is Good Text

     A couple of weeks ago I talked about the “vibes” of type and how different typefaces have completely different feels to them. The ones I covered were mainly display types, such as what would be used in titles, or headlines, or logos etc. Those are the ones you’re allowed to have fun with. Those are the ones I find myself “oohing” and “aahing” over as I scroll through lists of fonts for five hours.

     So yes, finding the right font for your title is immeasurably important.

     But what about the rest of the piece?

     I’ve been laying out a short story in InDesign for the last week or so and for the main text or body of the story I decided to use Garamond. Garamond is probably one of the oldest typefaces on earth, and it’s reliable and non-distracting. Fun Fact: Harry Potter uses 12 pt Garamond.

     Non-distracting is the goal. If you have large quantities of text, and you want people to read it, it needs to be easy
 to read.

     This paragraph stands out, and that’s not necessarily a good thing. Nobody wants to be intimidated by what they’re about to read. They won’t be intimidated if they don’t even notice the text.

     And I don’t mean that as in, they completely miss it and don’t even see it. What I mean is…did you notice what font I was using for this blog post until I suddenly switched it up to Boucherie Block? Probably not. It was just there. Living it’s text life. That’s just it.

     You want whoever is reading the main body to be reading, and not paying attention to the shapes of the letters (or the spacing between them).

"It's the job that's never started as takes longest to finish." J. R. R. Tolkien