Notes on Fonts

Picking the correct typeface is very specific in a magazine because visual image is very important. The type of font you use says a lot about your magazine, using many transitional and modern typefaces can make your magazine look very boring. Also, using too many fonts that contrast each other can look very unprofessional and messy.

Most modern magazines like to use Sans Serf fonts such as 'Arial', 'Helvetica', 'Verdana'. Using subtle differences between fonts really makes a difference, such as highlighting words using bold or italics. Even making the font slightly bigger or smaller can make a huge difference.

Some magazines like to put certain things that are more formal in Serif fonts such as 'Georgia' or 'Times'. Magazines put things such as their website address, the price or even something big they want to stand out in Serif fonts.

In this issue of 'Rolling Stone', all of the main coverlines are in Serif fonts and the captions for them are in Sans Serif fonts. The contrast between them is very imporant as creating a clear contrast indicates to the audience what's most imporant about the magazine. Adele is obviously the main subject of the magazine so her name is written in a huge Serif font. Even thought Serif fonts are usually assosiated with 'olden' texts and are thought of as boring, you can modernise them by having a thin slab, and increasing the contrast between thick and thin.

 

Typefaces can be used to emphasise words or just look visually appealing. I have seen lots of magazines do effects on their contents page, such as:

 

- PAGE14 

- PAGE14

- PAGE14

- PAGE14

 

This simple change can make a massive difference.