With literally thousands of typefaces to choose from, producing a document of extended length while maintaining high readability can be a challenging task for many designers. It is something that comes naturally as you mature in the profession, but there are some tips that novices can put into practice that will greatly lift the maturity of their work and result in a document that is easy on the eye and is highly legible and readable.

It is important to define the two terms I just mentioned. Legibility refers to individual characters: how well can each character be distinguished from the next. Readability therefore refers to the combination of letters and how well they can be read as a group, or as their entire sum. Taking these two considerations into account as a starting point towards achieving higher quality and more readable text is enough alone to bring great benefits to your work. But there are also some other guidelines that will further improve your design output.

1. Choose a typeface with similar character widths.
If you think about this logically, it makes sense. Characters with similar widths require less eye adjustment to recognise and compute.

2. Look for a balance between height and width of a character, while also having uniform balance of all elements that make up the individual character.
Avoid overly thin or wide fonts, as well as fonts that show a very high or low mid-point.

3. Choose a typeface with a stroke weight that is fairly uniform.
Avoid those that vary from narrow to wide stroke within each individual character.

4. Avoid fonts that are overly bizarre, or steer too far from convention.
While these fonts do seem exciting and attractive at first, they are best used in small doses for specialty designs like logos, or creative headlines. While they may seem like an easy-fix to breathe some life to your document, there really is no substitute for solid, well thought-out design, and the use of such fonts can really lower the standard of a piece of work.

5. Build a repertoire of favourite typefaces!
Becoming a great designer is as much about talent and skill, as it is about efficiency. Time is money! You should always be thinking about how you can improve your workflow and how you can avoid doing things more often than you need to. A good list of fonts that you are familiar with and know well, will save you many hours of searching through your computer’s list of fonts. Think of yourself as a painter, and your fonts as your paint brushes; or consider yourself as a chef, and your fonts as your set of knives. Fonts are your tools of trade and you should spend some time preparing them for masterful use.

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Written by Dario Paolini
Director – AstroPrint.com.au