Are Your Fonts Sending Mixed Messages?

In face-to-face communications, body language is said to account for more that 55% of the actual communication while the words that we speak account for only 7%. Our message is constantly going through the filters of what we look like, the clothing we wear, and how comfortable we are in the situation we are in. Ultimately, the words that we say are judged by how authentic we are based on those non-verbal cues.

Now that is all well and good when we are talking to another person face-to-face, but when we are out there on the Internet trying to put our stories out there to our readers, how are they going to judge how authentic our message is? One unconscious way they will do it is through the fonts we use.

Fonts and the emotions behind them

Fonts are a large part of the “body language” of our websites. Typography conveys the emotional message of your brand. When you visualize a formal wedding invitation, you generally picture a fancy script font. If you were to see that same fancy font on an e-vite to a casual backyard BBQ, would something seem off about that message?

In the same way, an ultra-casual lifestyle blog having a stiff and traditional font setup will send mixed messages to the reader. As a fellow blogger, I can tell you that the last thing I want to do is come across as being something that I am not, especially since I love who I am, as I hope all of you do 🙂

Where to find the right font?

If you are one of those lifestyle blogs with the formal font setup or any other blog whose font doesn’t match their message, never fear because all hope is not lost. It has never been easier to find fonts that perfectly match your style.

Typically, serif fonts (fonts with the little tails at the end of the letter stroke) tend to come across as a bit more traditional while sans-serif fonts (fonts without the little tails) come across as a bit more modern. However, there are many variations in between. There are many fantastic websites that have hundreds of different fonts for your use. A couple of my favorites are

• Font Squirrel – All of the fonts here are free and many of them have webkits all ready for you to install onto your site
• Google Web Fonts – Also all free and super easy to use.
• DaFont – Tons of great fonts, but not all of them are available for commercial use.

Pinterest is also fantastic place for discovering great font combinations to use for your site. Check out my typography board if you are looking for a place to start.

How do you choose?

Now that you have discovered all of these amazing fonts, how do you narrow them down to the right ones? Good fonts are like cosmetics. The right ones call attention to you, not them. (Tweet this!) So what I want you to do is find a word or a phrase (maybe even your tagline) that really embodies what you want your site to feel like and try a few different fonts out using it. I find it to be super helpful to try them all out in a word processing document to see them all together. You will know when you find the right one because the visual message on the screen will line up with your meaning behind the words. Try it out and see!

Do you think the words that you write are lining up with the fonts that you are writing them in? Leave a comment below and let me know!