Revisiting Typography

Over the last couple of weeks, I browsed various different websites for fonts that I could possibly use in the book. I looked further into the theory behind the selection of fonts for children’s books. I know that the most important factors are a warm and friendly design that has simple letters. I learned that the counters should be rounded and open, not angular or rectangular.

I discovered a font which was primarily designed for children, called Sassoon Primary. It has excellent attributes of all I listed above. I have attached an image below.

I also discovered that typefaces with larger x-heights are generally easier to read than those with short x-heights, and this is especially true for children. I kept this in mind throughout my search.

Typography

I began firstly by researching fonts and font styles that occupy popular children’s books. I went to libraries for research on this and done a lot of online research for it also. There is a lot of websites made available to people today which offer some wonderful and free fonts. After I researched, it really came down to narrowing down the styles I want.

I gathered the very helpful knowledge that most children learn to read by going letter by letter until they are able to make sense of an entire word. Therefore, it is important to choose a typeface with well-defined contours and generous space between letters, which gives them a safe and inviting feeling.

I proceeded then to download each of the fonts to my laptop and assemble them on a document using Adobe Illustrator. I found it more ideal to see them together first to make comparisons.

I then narrowed down the ones I liked after inputting them into my prototype and selecting four possible fonts.