Whether you’re a seasoned graphic designer or consider yourself a non-designer, this post gives you 5 common typography mistakes to avoid in graphic design and ways to fix them. While it is helpful to know basic design principles when it comes to type, it is also extremely useful to know what to look out for so that you can push your design to the next level!
1. Lack of hierarchy
Hierarchy in typography and graphic design is a key design principle. To put it simply, hierarchy in graphic design is how you arrange graphic elements in order of visual importance. A design lacks hierarchy when things like font size, boldness, or placement are not considered intentionally. It is helpful to think about your information in terms of visual “reads”. When you look at your design, what do you read first? What do you read after that? What do you read last?
How to fix it:
- Establish the goal of your design.
- Figure out how you would like to prioritize information.
- Give your design a 1st read, 2nd read, and 3rd read.
- Consider things like font size, font style, and placement based on your “reads”.
2. Too many different fonts and font sizes
Once you discover the world of graphic design, it is so exciting to find different and unique fonts and to experiment with how to use them. As we established in the previous point, playing with size can be an extremely useful tool in graphic design. However, it is very important to note that having too many different sizes and too many different fonts can make your design difficult to read or confusing to navigate.
How to fix it:
- Choose 1-3 fonts and stick to them throughout your design.
- Double check that your font sizes are consistent. Maybe your Headlines are all 23pt font and your body copy is 10pt. Stick to it!
3. Ignoring illegible typography
Typography is such an expressive tool in graphic design so it’s easy to get very creative with it. But if you are aiming for a design that communicates a lot of important information, it is important for your typography to be legible. Some common mistakes that make typography illegible are: not having enough contrast between the background and the type, choosing a font that is difficult to read, or making the type too small.
How to fix it:
- Make sure that the colors that you choose for your background and font have enough contrast. The more contrast, the more legible your type will be.
- Choose a font that is not difficult to read. For example, while script fonts can be nice for a headline font, they are difficult to read in large amounts, so avoid them in body copy.
- Avoid making your font too small. If you have to squint to see it, you might want to go a bit larger!
4. Awkward spacing
Spacing is another key element of design. It is very common to overlook the importance of space within a design since it usually refers to the space where there’s no typography or other graphic objects. But spacing in typography is something that can affect the legibility and flow of information. Having lines of copy too close together can make reading overwhelming for the reader and having lines too far apart can lose the reader’s attention mid-sentence!
How to fix it:
- Double check that your spacing is consistent throughout your design.
- Consider other graphic elements in your design and make sure they are not too close together, as they can be distracting.
5. Inconsistent alignment
Alignment in your design can help immensely with visual consistency and flow. Aligning graphic elements and especially typography can be a useful practice especially if you want your design to organize information. Aligning type also signals the viewer to relate different points of the design to each other. Having inconsistent alignment may make the viewer confused on where to look next, which is what interrupts the flow of the design.
How to fix it:
- Think about what information can or should be viewed together.
- Choose an alignment: left-justified, centered, right-justified, or justified.
- Double check that each portion of the copy is consistently aligned with the next.
It is of course important to note that there is a lot of creative freedom in graphic design. Sometimes breaking the rules makes sense for whatever you’re making. It really depends on what your goal for the design is. But if your goal with your design is to communicate information to an audience and to make it visually appealing, then keeping an eye out for these mistakes will help you achieve the designs you are aiming for!