Musicians: Learn How to Properly use Fonts on Your Blog (and Website)

This is an excerpt of MicControl’s free eBook: "How To Craft The Perfect Blog Post". MicControl is a music blogging community and social media/ blog consulting firm. This guest post talks about some of the do’s and don’ts of choosing the right font for your blog. Enjoy!

Musicians: Learn How to Properly use Fonts on Your Blog (and Website)

Your blog is meant to be read (or at least skimmed). Increasing the quality of the formatting and content, and making the post as skimmable as possible will help to increase the effectiveness of your articles. After all, your articles are being read by people with notoriously short attention spans.

So if you are really just trying to keep the attention of your readers, couldn't the use of interesting and flashy font help?

Simply put, no.

While it may seem like a good idea to experiment with different styles, sizes and colors of fonts, ask yourself one question:

How readable is my blog?

This is one of the most important questions you can ask yourself because ultimately, if your blog is unreadable then it doesn't matter how great the content within actually is.

Although you may be tempted to play around with the font of your blog in hopes of avoiding the typical 'boring' or 'dull' fonts- this is one place where eye catching doesn't have a positive impact, and in fact can have a down-right negative effect on your blog.

What Makes A Good Font?

Choosing the correct font for your blog can actually have an enormous impact on the effectiveness of your articles. Not because a good font will make a post that much easier to read (though it could), but more simply because picking a bad font can make it much harder to read the article.

Before picking a font, there are some guidelines that you'll want to consider. While we don't claim to be experts in the field of typography, there is an amazing resource for you use from Before & After, a graphic design magazine called What Is The Right Typeface For Text?

Here are a few of the guidelines they recommend considering:

1. Pick a typeface with similar character width

This helps to keep up with the natural rhythm of reading.

Ex: Times New Roman

2. Watch out for mirroring images

Geometric typestyles can cause mirroring images when similar letter shapes, such as db and qp, are placed close together.

Ex: Helvetica Neue Roman

3. Avoid overlarge 'counters'

'Counters' are enclosed spaces inside letters, such as b d p q. When these enclosed spaces are too big, it can become straining on the eyes.

Ex: ITC Avant Garde Gothic

These guidelines and more are explained in much greater detail in Before & After's FREE download! We highly recommend checking it out here here.

Which Fonts To Use

Now that you've explored the many guidelines that make a font good or bad, it's time to go ahead and pick the font that best fits your blog. When it really comes down to it, picking the 'best font' means picking a font that you like and that follows the guidelines above, making it easier to read.

Here are some font's that we recommend trying:

• Arial
• Verdana
• Times New Roman

Each of these fonts satisfy of the aforementioned guidelines, are web safe and best of all, are easy on the eyes.

Avoiding The Annoying

Working with fonts isn't just about picking the right typestyle. There are also a few things you want to avoid for one very important reason: They can really piss people off!

Using Caps Lock

Capitalizing a single word here and there is another effective way of illustrating emphasis. There is nothing wrong with showing people just how HUGELY important something is...

But if there is one thing that will truly piss people off, it is when they look at a blog post and the whole article is in capital letters. Not only is it unprofessional, it creates a very strained reading experience.

As a rule of thumb, avoid using caps lock within a blog post.

Bright Colors

Using a bright colored font in a newsletter or advertisement may be a good way of grabbing someone's attention, but makes for a not so great reading experience. Stick with a black font when at all possible, or if you must, use a dark blue or dark gray. But be forewarned that even using a gray or blue can make your content a bit more difficult to read. A black font is truly the best way to let your text pop off of your background.

Big & Small Font

The standard sizes for web fonts can range from 12px to 16px. We recommend using 12px or 14px font as it can help to make the content a bit easier to read without being too broken up. Again, in hopes of making your articles as readable as possible, keep away from using font sizes that require a magnifying glass (any size 10px or below) or font sizes that require too much scrolling due to the article being overly broken up (any size 18px or above).

To read MicControl’s free eBook: "How To Craft The Perfect Blog Post", visit: http://miccontrol.com/#/consulting/