Use fonts to tell a storyįor example, the novel Interior Chinatown tackles the idea of typecasting and stereotyping in the film industry. Many of the so-called font rules can be broken if the situation really calls for it. Or even go all out and do something funky with the body text - as long as it makes sense for the layout of your book. You can get a bit creative with titles and headings that capture the spirit or genre of your book a little better. Your font choice should also be influenced by the contents of your book. To draw your reader in, you’ll want a modern, stylish font that will appeal - but this is pretty subjective, so again, go with one that you like. If there is a font choice that you think would really elevate or set your work apart, feel free to choose novelty over convention. But as a result of this theory, you'll commonly see serif fonts used for large bodies of text while 'sans serif' fonts - literally, without serifs - are usually reserved for shorter bits of text like chapter titles and headings.Īll this said, humans are adaptable and your reader should be able to adjust to pretty much any font after a chapter or so. Supposedly, serifs lead the eye from one letter to the next, making the reading experience easier and less tiring - although there isn’t actually much scientific evidence in favor of this. To serif or not to serif?Īlthough you may not know the serif by name, you’ll definitely have noticed these little lines or strokes coming off the end of letters in certain fonts like Times New Roman (and the modified Times font that we use here on the Reedsy blog!). Though you obviously want your font to look nice on the page, it also needs to do its job and be easily readable so that readers can immerse themselves in your words without getting distracted or having to decipher what things say. It may be the most gorgeous thing to look at, but if it’s uncomfortable to sit on, then what use is it really? The same goes for fonts. Having said that, there are a few things that any discerning book designer will want to keep in mind. With the exception of a few universally reviled typefaces - cough cough, Comic Sans - almost any legible font can be considered.
How to choose a book fontĬhoosing the 'right' font to use for a book's body matter often comes down to individual taste.
However, for convenience’s sake, we’re going to be using the term ‘font’ to refer to both the overall styles of type and their variations. ‘Fonts’, on the other hand, are size, weight and style variations on typefaces, like 12 pt Times New Roman bold and 14 pt Arial italic. True typography experts will be quick to point out how the term ‘font’ is commonly misused in everyday, non-technical conversation.įor typographers, ‘typefaces’ are different lettering designs, like Times New Roman and Arial. Before we get started, let’s clear up a terminological detail.
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