What About Fonts?
Virtus Publishing Production Tip
What About Fonts?
In a previous post we looked at what makes a good interior design, which dealt primarily with the mechanics of getting text into professional book pages.
An important aspect of the interior design is the font (or typeface) that’s selected. The first image shows a snapshot of the fonts folder in Windows 10: in that case there are 788 different fonts. These days most designers have access to thousands.
Fonts can be broadly categorized into text fonts (what would be used for regular body text) and display fonts (what would be used for titles, headings, and other displayed content that isn’t regular body text). The fonts available to any designer range from very common and accessible fonts to very obscure specialized fonts that would be unsuitable for many situations in a book.
The font that’s selected will invariably have an impact on the overall look and feel of a book. It’s fairly standard to use serif fonts (such as Times New Roman) for text and sans serif fonts (such as some form of Gothic) for headings, but there’s no set rule. The second image shows a snapshot of the designer’s instructions for a recent Virtus title.
In this case, the author wanted to “lighten up” the look a little bit for the chapter titles. The designer selected a script font that works great as a display, but which would be inappropriate for regular text. In order to delineate the sections, the designer selected another simple font that makes the headings easily distinguishable from the regular text.
The main objective when selecting a font for regular text is to select a typeface that’s easy to read on any device and that isn’t a distraction. Your content should be the focus: Not the presentation.
It’s important to make a decision as to whether a classic or modern look is desired. Serif fonts such as the ubiquitous Times Roman tend to yield a more classic look.
At Virtus, we provide interior design samples that include different options, so that we can achieve the look and feel that’s appropriate to the title and that satisfies the objectives of the author.
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