Decoding the Art of Typeface Selection for Captivating Stories
A Comprehensive Guide for Crafting Striking Book Covers
Choosing the right typeface for your story’s book Cover or movie poster is a crucial creative component which sets the tone, communicates the genre and grabs audience attention. Here are some things to consider when selecting a typeface.
Determine the genre or target audience you are trying to reach. For example a thriller, horror story will most likely lean into Bold edgy typefaces while a romantic story may utilize elegant cursive fonts. If your story straddles many different genres this is an opportunity to dig deeper to the core message within your story. You may break the expected norms of a genre font on purpose to clue your audience and readers into the undertones of the story.
Look at the title itself and the content. Is your story set in a specific time period? You could pull common fonts used in that era to further communicate its setting like a historical vintage style font or vaudevillian posters. Pinterest is a great resource to shop for era specific posters and advertisements.
The Importance of Balance
Be sure your font is still legible. A font you may love for its aesthetic purposes could still not be the right fit if it’s not legible. You want the title to be immediately readable and recognizable.
While creative fonts can add personality and style to a design, it’s crucial that they don’t sacrifice clarity. Remember that the primary purpose of text is to be read. When selecting a font, always test its readability across various sizes and on different devices to ensure that your audience can easily understand your message without straining.
Use contrast to make your text stand out and to guide the reader’s attention to the most important parts of your content. Contrast can be achieved through font size, weight, and color. For instance, pairing a bold headline font with a lighter body text can effectively draw attention to key areas, making the content not only more engaging but also more organized.
Consider Font Pairings
Many successful book covers and movie posters utilize 2 different fonts. This can be a tricky balance itself as the fonts should look visually appealing together, different enough to show separation without being too dissonant from one another. A good clue is if you look at them together from far away. Is one competing with the other and drawing too much focus so much that you miss words in the title?
Handwritten for example is a great font to combine with sans-serif (lacking strokes or tails in the letters) One being more simple while the other carries a flourish. If you select 2 elaborate handwritten fonts they will likely compete as it becomes too much information for the reader to digest and feel hectic.
Test and eliminate. It’s easy to fall in love with too many font options. I’m guilty of this every time I shop around for fonts for my clients. A good system I’ve used to help narrow down is typing your title with each font and stacking all of those fonts together on one page to begin your first elimination process. If you already have colors or designs put together for the cover start putting those remaining fonts over top and continue eliminating.
Ideally leave yourself a max of 3-4 options and play with their placement, size and arrangement. If you end up with a few different fonts like handwritten and san serif, start combining them together in creative ways.
At this point you may start hitting decision fatigue. The words start looking like not real words and you start spiraling, don’t panic! This is normal. This is a great time to save your final few options and step away for an hour to reset your eyeballs. If you have a trusted creative partner let them check it out, they might notice something you didn’t! You’ll be shocked at the things you catch after giving yourself a break and the final selection may feel like a no brainer.
Final Thoughts
Hierarchy is important! This means you want to have your most important information the largest in size while the author or director type is typically smaller. Avoid making these the same size, the audience then gets confused about what information is important and feels overwhelmed.
Kerning is the space between your letters. Many typefaces are quite close at accurately spacing their letters evenly but not always! The dreaded W has a tricky way of commanding more space and if you’re visually seeing discrepancies between letters you should manually adjust them. This is a cornerstone of good design.
Letter Spacing. You have the option to put a lot or a little bit of space between your letters further communicating the story. For instance a book called ‘Breathe’ might utilize this customization to physically present the font more spread out giving it literal breathing room. Or a thriller about claustrophobia you may intentionally give little to no space between words or even placement on the cover (ie bring it out to the very edge creating tension) This is a fun process, however don’t forget the Legibility vs aesthetic rule. Is it still readable? There are endless fun ways to transform your selected fonts, check out dribbble or even books, ads, and signs next time you’re out and about. Design is all around you!!
If you’re feeling overwhelmed or stuck, that’s ok!! Endless possibilities while wonderful can also create a tricky tightrope to balance all these elements uniquely but also effectively. I love design and would love to assist you on your creative project to make the cover or poster reflect the magic you’ve created within the story. For more specialized help book a free consultation with us. We’d love to geek out on fun creative typefaces for your brand or next creative project.
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