By Hannah Nguyen, Intern

First off, what did you think of the title image’s font? Cute? Bubbly? Did you wonder why a professional marketing consultant would choose something that looks like it could be used in a high school pep rally for her website?  

In any case, it piqued your interest enough that you clicked it. And that is the magic of font choice. 

I don’t usually get as Draconian about talking about fonts, but watching this 5-minute video, developed by Vox, made me realize that choosing the wrong font and/or not being careful about how you lay out your information can have drastic effects.  

To sum up the video, the authors claim that small fonts and unclear layouts are to blame for: 

  • the 2017 Oscars snafu in which Lalaland was mistakenly named Best Picture instead of Moonlight  
  • thousands of people voting incorrectly during the 2000 Presidential Election   
  • 500,000 medical incidents per year caused by patients misreading the prescription bottle in the US 

 And while the consequences might not be as far-reaching as those listed above, they still can impact your sales, so ask yourselves: Is your marketing team considering…  

Layout:

  1. The human eye naturally travels from top to bottom.  
  2. Big texts tend to get our attention, so use these to emphasize titles and make topics more distinguishable.
  3. Readers are busy, so breaking up the text by topic makes it much more manageable.  

Font:

  1. Don’t make them squint: try contrasting colors instead. 
  2. Choose font types that complement each other and your brand.
    Ex: Are you a newspaper? No? Then maybe Times New Roman isn’t for you.  
  3. Run your prototype past a friend, a colleague, a particularly bored grandma if you have to.
  4. Excessive ALL CAPS is cumbersome for our eyes, however, when used appropriately they can be very useful.

Readers won’t put in the time or the effort to read something they don’t need to. Develop content that is worth their time: inbound marketing is a give-and-take relationship.  

Also in case you’re like me and are still wondering, I chose this title image for two reasons:

  1. It’s clickbait.
  2. I find it aesthetically pleasing.

About the Author

Hannah Nguyen is a senior at Ursuline Academy of Dallas. A self-described word fiend, Hannah loves finding that right combination of words to perfectly convey her message. Her adventures across the globe — traveling to Canada, France, Vietnam and Peru — give her a global perspective that sets her apart from the average American teen. Hannah is passionate about feminism and climate change. She holds a deep love for sticky notes — and if you want to get on her sweet side, just gift her with peppermint bark.