There are many pieces of design that a graphic designer is essential for, but if you have the time and the inclination you can create great design yourself for a variety of marketing channels.
Tools like Canva allow amateurs to have a go at design, creating social media banners, website banners and even flyers. Mailchimp allows everyone to manage and send email campaigns and gives great flexibility in layout and design. However it’s not easy to create great looking design and one of the most difficult parts can be typography or how to layout text, so I thought I’d create this handy little guide to making fonts look good
So first lets very simply look at what different fonts say to an audience:
Now I would say that in body text you want to stick with either serif or sans-serif and on the whole try and stick with fonts that match your branding. Here are some other helpful rules to make your text look great
Make sure the Leading (space between lines) is at least 2 points more than your font size, so it’s not too squashed
Don’t stretch the fonts, although for a modern, high-end look you might like to increase the Tracking – space between the letters
Don’t use too many fonts, two is enough really, more than that looks messy and takes away from what you are trying to say
Use bold or larger fonts for titles and sub titles, so the hierarchy of the text looks right
Use fancy fonts for titles, not body text
Only use Script fonts in lower case, they look awful in upper case.
Watch out for ‘orphans’ – leaving one word on it’s own at the end of a sentence
I hope this little guide helps you create more beautiful designs which match your brand and really speak to your target audience