Multimedia advice

The importance of knowing your fonts

Ever since Poynter’s Sara Quinn taught me the importance of a strong font, I have always been more conscious about the fonts I choose for my multimedia packages. For all you graphic artists and designers out there: Does finding this video humorous make me a nerd, or a budding designer?

> Click here to see original video on YouTube

If you laughed at this video, make sure to check out 10,000 words’ “7 fonts that should die” post. With 85 comments and counting, this post crashed his site and aroused a great conversation from passionate designers around the world.

A few of my font tips:
1) San serif fonts are good for video captions, like Verdana.
2) DO NOT use more than three font families on a site. (Ideally you should stick to two.)
3) Try to combine a serif and san serif font to create balance on the page.
4) Serif is better for titles and shorter text fields, while san serifs are used more for body text.
5) UNC professor Alberto Cairo thinks that papyrus should be banned … permanently.
6) I personally love the combination of the Myriad Pro and Minion Pro families.
7) Some argue that Verdana is not a good choice for a web font because of how it displays in comparison to others.

What other advice am I leaving out?

Other posts that might interest you:

• Soundslides now facilitates video conversion
• Great reads straight from the Information Science classroom
• YouTube showcases Michael Wesch’s visual analysis on new media

© 9 February 2009 Innovative Interactivity.