I’m getting married soon. And about a month ago, my fiancé and I sat down to start designing our wedding invitation. We were using a design program called Canva. It was going great until it came time to decide on the font. Minutes turned into hours as we tried option after option after option. Finally we chose one we both agreed on, but I think it was mostly exhaustion that drove our decision.
Font choice is one of those things that seems to immobilize anyone who isn’t a graphic designer. It can often feel like a shot in the dark. So today, we’ll run through a crash course on one of the fundamentals of choosing a font: whether to use a serif or sans serif font.
Serif
Adobe gives a great definition and brief history of serifs. They say, “Serifs are the small lines attached to letters. Their origins are a mystery; one theory suggests they arose when scribes using brushes or quills left small marks with the writing implement as they finished each stroke. This evolved into deliberately adding smaller strokes in more regular, artful ways, and those decorative strokes became an expected part of the letters.” So serif fonts are those with little lines that come off of the letters. For example, on this page, the text is a sans serif font, but the large title at the top of the page is a serif font.
It’s important to remember that your font is part of your communication. So the font that you choose helps to create a mood or feeling which should be consistent with your purpose and content. Traditionally, serif fonts communicate professionalism, formality, and sophistication. Because they are often used by newspapers, they feel more classical and historical.
Branding agent Robyn Young says serif fonts might be a good choice if you “want to be seen as trustworthy, established, and reliable.” You might also choose to use a serif font if you want your reader to stick with you longer because you have a large amount of printed text, as research from Cognition Today shows. Or as designer Madeline DeCotes says, you may want to choose a serif if your printed text will be small. That’s because serifs are easier to read at smaller scales because the they help readers to distinguish letterforms more easily.
Sans Serif
Sans means “without.” So sans serif fonts are literally, fonts without serifs. These fonts tend to be seen as more contemporary and cutting-edge. They tend to communicate a more modern and playful approach.
The research from Cognition Today says that sans serif fonts work best if your audience has less time to read, like on a website or app. Think about the difference between sitting down with a cup of coffee and a printed newspaper versus scrolling quickly through an article on your phone to get the most information you can in the least amount of time. The first lends itself to serif fonts, whereas sans serif fonts would work best in the second case. Aside from websites and apps, DeCotes also says that sans serifs work great for signage or having to read large letters from a distance. That means a sans serif font might work better for your audience if they are looking at a large screen to see your presentation media.
When it comes time to choose a font, make this decision first: serif or sans serif? And let your new knowledge of their different meanings, moods, and uses guide you.
At Ethos3, presentations are our business. From development to design to delivery, we are here to help.
