Graphic Design 101: (Font) Size Matters

 

Something that is easily forgotten when working on a design is that size matters. Font size, that is.

The size of a piece of type is one of the most important, if not THE most important aspects of it that influences how easy it is to read. More specifically, the smaller it gets, the harder it is to read - especially for those who have issues with their vision already.

To help you understand this, take a look at these sentences and think about which one is the easiest and which one is the hardest to read:

The quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dog.

The quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dog.

The quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dog.

The quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dog.

The quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dog.

The quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dog.

Which one was the hardest to read? The smallest one at the bottom, right?

Even though each of those sentences says the exact same thing, this example still helps express the fact that if a set of type is too small, it's hard to read. And what can make it difficult to remember that we need to watch out for this is the fact that on programs such as InDesign, Illustrator, and even Microsoft Word, we can usually zoom in on our documents so we can see minute details. But that ability to zoom in doesn't exist in real life, so the problem with fonts being too small still persists in things such as booklets, magazine, posters, print advertisements, and anything else where the size of the type is fixed and finite because it's printed and not digital.

So, what is the best way to avoid this problem?

For starters, try to remember a point size that is generally easy to read but is still somewhat small and consider that to be the smallest you can go with your type and fonts before you get to a point where it's hard to read. For those of you who have written a paper of almost any kind in high school or college, you're likely very familiar with the standard choices of the fonts Arial and Times New Roman in a 12 point size. This size is very standard and is easy to read for most people. If you use that approximate size for the limit of how small you can go in your own work, you will likely not have to worry about your audience struggling to read it.

BUT not all fonts actually appear to be the same size even if you tell whatever program you're using to make them all 12, 14, or 18 points in size. So with that in mind, you have 3 possible options:

1) Before typing out a lot of text onto your project in your desired font, perhaps type out what you want you want to say in Arial or Times New Roman in a 12 point size (or whatever you want your baseline to be) and compare the size of what you're typing to that copy of it. If what you type appears to be significantly smaller than that copy, then increase the size of what you have typed out in your desired font.

2) Type out what you want in a size, or better yet a range of sizes, then print it out and see how it looks when it's in a setting where you can't just zoom in and out to make it easier to read. If you feel like it appears to be too small in that context, then increase the size.

3) If you're making a relatively small piece that is perhaps the size of a standard 8.5 x 11 inch sheet of paper or another size that is easy to understand and imagine how large it will be in real life, take time to zoom out from your project so that you can see the entire piece on screen and look at the smallest portions of your text and think about whether or not it will be legible based on its proportions to the overall piece if/when you print the piece out. However this is the most inaccurate and unreliable way to figure out what font sizes you should use and I don't recommend using it unless you are already very familiar with font sizing and how it effects legibility.

The size of your type can have a huge impact on whether or not your audience understands the information contained in your piece. If they can't read it, then your piece is substantially less effective regardless of whatever else you might have on it, and that can defeat the purpose of creating the design at all.