Official blog of Clark's Blogging for Journalists class, Mass Communication department

Tuesday, September 1, 2015

Are you my type?

Doesn't matter what you post if people can't read it, or if it's hard to read. Your job is to make it easy.

 Read today, for Thursday class:

http://blog.fonts.com/2012/02/07/10-web-typography-trends-to-watch-in-2012/

Also check http://blog.fonts.com/

2. How does the type measure up on your blog? One good thing, one weakness? Comment below by 5 pm Wednesday.


Read  this:

Clark’s Guide to

Readable Typography for Blogs

(Or anything, for that matter)

1.         Serif—Easiest to read
2.         Sans Serif—harder to read the smaller it is or the more of it there is
3.           Most body type should be about 12 point in size

4.           Script is hard to read--invitations only

5.           Italic is hard to read

6. 

    Only Center Type
on invitations
and titles,
not on body copy


7. ALL CAPS IS HARD TO READ

8.                  REVERSE TYPE 
should be at a
Minimum
And bold
And small san serif 
is hard to read
As is colored type
on reverse  
10.             Screens can make type hard to read

Especially over sans serif

Or heavy and colored screens

11.               Weak colors disappear

12.               Colored type isn’t as effective
As black type, or dark type on a light background

13.      Don’t  Mix Lots of Type Faces

14.            Stick with a few
                  that are compatible

10 comments:

  1. After reading the two posts I discovered that my blog was not the easiest thing for others to read. It looked cute, but as far as being able to read it easily was a different story. The color scheme of my blog flows really well and is appealing to the eye. The font color reflects nicely on the backgrounds making my posts easy to read. The font style that I had chosen for my blog would have to be my weakness. I went for something cute that was all in caps lock. This made the posts difficult to read, so a quick change to my font type fixed the problem!

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  2. In the beginning, my blog wasn't the easiest to read. It had a black background with white text making it hard and kind of painful to my eyes to read. I chose a too fancy font which didn't help my case either. After playing with it for a while, I made my background white with a photo that relates to the kind of blog I am writing. I changed my font to Georgia. I made my blog title bigger along with my title post font bigger. My weakness was definitely my original color scheme and font. It hurt the ability to be able to easily read it.

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  3. I had no idea there were so many things to think about concerning font when writing a blog post! I really wanted the color scheme on my blog to be blue and yellow (or bronze) for UCO, but I am quickly finding that it can be difficult to be able to read the font using those two colors. I do not want the color of the font to be lost in the background. Now that I am thinking about it, I might just need to change the background picture all together in order to make it more legible! I really do like the idea of blue and bronze as the color scheme to help express UCO throughout the whole thing.

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  4. I had no idea that there were so many factors to take into consideration when choosing a font. I think I was so focused on making the type look "cute" that I wasn't even considering if it was readable. I think a good thing about my blog layout is that my color scheme flows well, but it is also simple and easy to read now that I changed my font type and color background. A weakness of my blog right now is that it might be too simple. I plan on getting more advanced with my blog with the more information I learn about blogging.

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  5. I learned a lot about fonts! I had an inkling that there was a science to web design readability, but I just didn't have any knowledge behind my assumption. I'm happy to have read up on it. I knew I needed contrast, and I have a dark background with light words. While I have contrast, though, I'm questioning my color choices, after reading the article. I actually thought my design looked a little off, but I didn't know how to fix it. Now I know I may need less colorful letters, and perhaps a light background with dark letters. Also, I picked a simple font for my posts, but I think I'll like serif better. I didn't know how important feet were to readability! The information I read helped point by font design in a better direction.

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  6. Wow! I learned so much from these two articles about fonts. I never realized how a type of font truly can either make or break your blog. When I first made my blog the font I chose was very hard to read because of the background I chose. Since then I have changed my background but have also picked a good type of font that is easy on the eyes and I also have contrast within my blog as I have a light background with a darker font so it looks nice. Color scheme is very key for a good blog because you cannot have black font on a black background because then you cannot read it which defeats the purpose of a blog. I am happy with my blog and how it has turned out and I believe it is easy to read now.

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  7. I found my website, although using a readable font, was somewhat unreadable. I think I had the fonts set too small. One thing I noticed in my earlier postings was my layout. I had enormous walls of texts with a tiny font, so I'm sure that added to eye fatigue for my readers. I guess a strength would be that I was using a readable font to begin with.

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  8. I had no idea there was so much to know about fonts and type! Before reading the articles I thought my blog was pretty readable. I had a 12pt black font and a white background, so I thought I was set! But after reading some articles and talking in class I decided I did need to change a few things. I had a lot of different fonts being used on my page. The header, sub headers, post titles, page texts, and gadget texts were all different. I decided to limit it down to just 2 or 3 different fonts. After changing it I think my blog looks much better and more professional and easy to read and has a nice flow.

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  9. I have learned a lot about fonts from the articles and from taking Specialized Pub. semesters ago. I think one of the most important things is to not have too many different fonts. It can become distracting. I think I have a decent balance between serif and sans serif on my blog. In the beginning my blogs title was difficult to read because I had reverse type. I still have reverse type but it looks much better now with my choice of background. As of right now I am content with the fonts and colors of my page.

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  10. Since class on Tuesday, I've learned a lot about different types of font and text. I learned that not only do different fonts tell different stories but also that some are obviously easier to read than others. One good thing about what I've learned is that I've updated my blog several times and ended up finding a font that can be seen easier. One weakness is that I'm still trying to decide on a few colors that work best without taking away from the text.

    ReplyDelete