So, you need to choose a typeface. This is a task which I would rather avoid if I were you. If you work for an organization or a company of some sort, have a look at your style guide. There are probably at least two typefaces specified there, sometimes more. And one of them being fancy shmancy typeface, which is typically used for print advertising and now on web site probably. And the second typeface is something boring, something that comes with your operating system, and well, this is as much luck as you get here. However, it will save you all the trouble of selecting the typeface yourself, which I think is actually quite good. This is quite a deal, trust me. Selecting a typeface is very problematic. However, if you still need to select a typeface, listen up. First, let me tell you what is wrong with Calibri, Arial, Times, etc. etc. because this is the question I'm being asked all the time. Well, one word: overuse. There's just way too much of that. One of the gurus of my country, Yuri Gordon, a very famous Russian typographer and type designer, says that the only quality criterion for a display typeface is the amount of good design produced with this typeface. And if we begin to judge Arial, Calibri, Times New Roman with this criterion, we will very quickly come to a conclusion that the typeface is appalling because there's just so much better design produced with those kinds of typefaces, and we do not need those associations. We want something fresh. We want, at least, we want to, you know, be closer to good design, to good typefaces. "But wait a second," some people tell me at this point. "But Gordon was only talking about display typefaces, not about text typefaces." Well, what is going on here? In typography, they say that there are text typefaces, typefaces which are readable but boring, and display typefaces, interesting but somewhat impractical. And we typically reserve text typefaces for the main body text, and headlines were put in big, bold display letters. We also use them for logos or if you're designing a poster, these kinds of typefaces are your friends. But, I think that, in reality, there are no text typefaces and display typefaces. I think that there are just bad typefaces and good typefaces. Let me explain what I mean. Why do we use fonts that are hard to read? Why do we use them at all? And the answer is simple. The answer is because fancy shmancy typefaces produce better recall. They are much more distinctive because they are slightly less readable. People remember what they read in those kinds of typefaces, in this particular experiment, +14 percent better recall. So, I think that there are typefaces that are both readable and have a bit of a character, if you will, and there are typefaces which are just plain boring, and there are typefaces which are just entirely unreadable. I think you can have the best of the two worlds, and I think you have to try as much as you can to combine those two things. I think we are in search of an interesting typeface which is also not very hard to read. Now, what makes the typeface readable is a discussion that I will try to avoid for as much as possible. Let's just agree that we are not using typefaces which are obviously hard to read, OK? We do not use Comic Sans. We do not to use, I don't know, Brush Script, Blackmoor, etc etc. We do not use fancy typefaces just for the fact of them being fancy. We are trying to stay readable. So, if you put Arial against Bank Gothic, you will see that Arial is a much better typeface. Bank Gothic is not good for anything except for a logo, perhaps. Right? However, if you compare Arial to Helvetica, you will not see any discernible difference, at first. But I would argue that Helvetica is actually a much better choice compared to Arial because Helvetica also looks good in big sizes. You can also do logos in Helvetica as well as just the main body text. Now, I don't know if you know which logo is the real one. Try to guess. And yes, you've guessed correctly. The bottom one, the second one, is the real logo. If you look closer at this f-t conjunction, you will see that it is very neatly organized in Helvetica and it is all jagged in Arial. Now, why is that? And this is because of the rules that were applied by whoever designed those typefaces. Helvetica has those neatly-cut terminals, either 90 degrees or 880 degrees, while Arial's terminals are at all kinds of weird angles, for readability, they say, but I say this is just, you know, to distinguish themselves from Helvetica because Arial is, of course, a copy of Helvetica. Now, there are hundreds, there's probably thousands of logos done in Helvetica. I dare you try and find at least one good logo in Arial, and you will not. So, at this point, many people ask, why doesn't everybody use Helvetica? And the answer is because of the licensing constraints. Right? You have to purchase a license to Helvetica. Well, if you're on a Mac, good luck there. You have Helvetica on your computer. But if you're on Windows, you will probably need to acquire one. In fact, if you want to stay safe, you need to limit yourself to those 11, or them 10 actually, kinds of typefaces. These are the so-called core web fonts, the fonts which are supposed to be on every device connected to the Internet. And if you look at it really closely, you'll see that there isn't too much of a choice. You cannot use Andale Mono because it's a monospaced font, all the letters are of the same width, very wide letters like W and very narrow letters like I are of the same width. Don't ask, it's a technical thing. Sometimes, you have to do this like on a typewriter, for example. The second typeface is Arial. Well, we can use Arial. The next one is Arial Black. You cannot use Arial Black as your primary typeface because it's, well, Black, it's very thick. You cannot use Comic Sans because, well, guess why? You cannot use Courier New because, well, it's just way too thin. You can use Georgia. Georgia is actually a very nice typeface. You cannot use Impact because it's just way too thick. You cannot use Times New Roman because guess why? You can use Trebuchet and you can use Verdana. So, you have but three typefaces to choose from: Arial, Trebuchet, and Verdana. And of those three typefaces, if I were you, I would choose Verdana. This is actually a very nice typeface which was designed by Matthew Carter, a very famous guy. Nice job there. So, if you want to stay safe and avoid all the hassle, use Verdana and/or Georgia. They were designed as companion typefaces by the same type designer. They work really well together. IKEA uses Verdana, so there's a great amount of good design produced in Verdana. So, once again, if you want to stay safe and avoid all the hassle, Georgia and Verdana is your choice. However, if you want an adventure, if you do not like this simple, even simplistic, I would say, advice, listen on.
