[Baghead]

The all-in-one guide to Fonts.

Fonts are a huge aspect of graphic design and the right font can complete a piece of work. If you're a beginner, picking a font is probably a challenge for you. You'll flee to the first font pack you see, open it up, and go ballistic with that cool batman font you just found. This is a huge mistake. I visit the RMG section every day to give CnC and learn from other graphic artists, and I always see beginners using terrible and obnoxious fonts. With this guide, you'll never make the mistake of using that obnoxious gothic font you just found ever again.

I apologize in advance for the lack of imagery, as I don't have access to Photoshop right now so I'm unable to create examples.

Simplicity and Readability

When picking a font, you should always look for two characteristics: It must be easily readable, and it should be fairly simple. Of course, you don't always have to use a plain white block font, but it shouldn't be some unreadable cursive or graphical cluster. A good example of a simple and nice looking font is Bebas Neue. It's easy to read and easy on the eyes, and if used right will make your design look simple and elegant. You should avoid gothic and grafitti fonts most of the time as they're usually hard to read and not appealing. Additionally, you should always keep font size in mind. Font size comes into play whenever you're using text. The text should be big enough to read but small enough to fit and match the other elements of your design. But as with all things, make sure not to overuse any one font. In any given piece there should only be two to five fonts at the most, depending on what you're creating. For instsance, a thread design should have around three fonts: A header font which can be flashy and big, a body font which should be easy to read but fairly small and simple, and a font or two for other things such as contact info and payment options. As well as the font itself being readable, you should always make sure that it's dark enough against your background to be read easily and without and effort. For instance, if you have a white background and you're using a light gray font, you may want to reconsider your choice of color. Black on white is the most obvious combination of font on background and can never go wrong.

Font Compliments

Fonts look nice on their own, however certain elements such as drop shadow, color, background, bevel (Be careful with this one), and size can greatly improve the quality of your font and piece overall. Fonts also compliment other fonts. Some fonts look nice together, and there are ways to combine fonts to create something nice and simple. Cursive and Block is a good example of a nice looking font combination. When a block font (Such as Bebas Neue) is put down next to a cursive font (Such as Branboll) the resulting effect is very appealing and professional looking. Font combination is a common technique used in logos and headers, and can even be used in my signature. As well as combining fonts, some fonts just look nice with each other in the same piece. For example, when creating a thread design you should use fonts that look nice and compliment each other rather than fonts that clash. If you create a thread design with all cursive fonts, chances are it won't look good. However if you create a thread design with a cursive font for the header and a nice and simple font for the body, the whole thread will look much better.

Picking an appropriate font

You should always use a font which relates to your design in some way. For instance, if I'm creating an invitation to my grandmother funeral I wouldn't use comic sans (although I would never use comic sans anyways). Picking a situation appropriate font is always important. If you're creating a logo for a wedding cake company, a cursive font would be a good choice. If you're making a thread design advertising a minecraft server, then using the minecraft font would look nice. You get what I'm saying; use fonts that are appropriate for your design and avoid fonts that are the opposite. However don't restrict yourself; if you're creating a design and you find a related font which doesn't compliment the rest of your design, don't use it. Be creative, but if a font doesn't look good or your second guessing your choice. Oh, and if you're stuck and can't choose I found this cool and funny flowchart on picking an appropriate font here: http://clussman.com/wp-content/uploads/2...wchart.jpg use a different font.

The good, the bad, and the downright awful

If you don't have a good collection of fonts or you're wondering whether your favorite font is actually terrible, here's a list of some fonts I like to use and some fonts you should try to avoid.

Some of my favorite fonts:
Bebas Neue
House Slant
Nevis
Branboll
District Pro

Common Bad fonts:
Batman Forever
Comic Sans (This goes without saying)
Any graffiti font
Impact
Urban Fonts
Gothic Fonts
Brushscript

Sometimes those fonts on the 'bad font' list work with your design, such as the Batman Forever font. That font was used on the Serenity userbar and it actually works. Those fonts should usually be avoided, but sometimes you're piece just needs an obnoxious font to finish it off.

As you can see, picking a font is always so easy. You should always consider readability, simplicity, and situation. Try different colors, layer styles, and techniques. Anyways, I apologize for the lack of graphical headers and whatnot and I wish I could make this guide look more appealing, but I can't :/. I hope you enjoyed the guide and thanks for reading:)

[Cyba]

Thanks for the thread baghead, it's very helpful.

Regards,
Cyba.

[Earl Sweatshirt.]

Wow, very HQ post. Helpful for me as I just started GFX.

Keep it up.

;HiFrag

[Baghead]

thanks for the feedback guys. This tutorial took a while, hope it helps a few people out.

[Cody]

I love Bebas, great thread seems like you put some real effort! :)

[billy.]

Impact is a perfect font. I love using it when ghosting something to the background or something.

[Gold‎]

Thanks for this thread.
You gave me some good info, and some niceeee fonts.
Thanks again.

[Baghead]

Impact is a perfect font. I love using it when ghosting something to the background or something.

Like I said, some of the fonts on that list can be used for certain things, however it's generally a good idea to avoid them.

Thanks for this thread.
You gave me some good info, and some niceeee fonts.
Thanks again.

No problem. I'm glad you found it useful, and I trust you'll put those fonts to good use;)

[Skorp]

Nice contribution to a subject that is barely talked about.

[Retribute]

Nice tutorial. Luckily I have this natural feeling of whether a font fits a design or not ^__^

[+Awesome]

Thanks for mentioning the second last line.
No font is bad, but the depends where it is used.

Nice guide overall.

[Syberpro]

Hey buddy since your thread talks about font erm maybe you can help me it seems whenever I switch font my photoshop says i don't have that font but in folder i have it.

Here is what im talking about:

[Yurt]

Amazing tutorial dude, thank you for sharing! Now I know never to use the batman font :S
:P

[Text]

Great tutorial. Thanks for this mate.

[Baghead]

@Syberpro, I'm not sure what your problem is. If I were you I'd reinstall the font.

@everyone else, thanks for the feedback:) I'm glad you all like the tutorial.