When it comes to choosing the right fonts for your sublimation designs, you have to select the right one in order for the whole design to work with a pleasing visual aesthetic. It needs to convey the message you are trying to say and also needs to go with the theme of your entire art. There are thousands of fonts available and finding the best fonts to use can be a difficult task.
This guide will help you narrow down which fonts you should use, what type, have the right license for your intended use, and how many different fonts you should use for your sublimation designs. There are no hard-set rules on what fonts should be used but these guidelines will help with keeping your sublimation designs aesthetically pleasing to your buyers and audience.
Factors that you should consider when choosing the right fonts:
Typography is a useful art so it is a good idea to pick the right ones for your designs. When deciding on what the best font is for your design, consider some main factors such as what type of fonts will work for your project, what fonts go well together when paired, what type of license you need for the fonts you use, how many different fonts to use in one design, and the target audience you are selling your design to. Let’s dive into each one so you can narrow your choices down.
Types of fonts
There are four main types of fonts that you can choose from: Serif, Sans Serif, Script, and Decorative. Let’s see what the differences are between these:
Serif
These fonts have the small features at the end of the strokes. They are easily readable at small body copy sizes. You’ll see this more in longer paragraph style writing.
Sans Serifs
Sans Serif fonts do not have the small features at the end of the strokes. They make great large fonts as they easily stand out because they are usually thicker than serif fonts.
Script
Script fonts have the more cursive handwriting and calligraphy style typography. Some even have options for glyphs, which are the tails that can add to the design aesthetic.
Decorative/Display
These are mainly used to add a decorative flair to your design. They can have a great impact on the entire design if used properly.
Pairing Fonts
Choose fonts that have a high contrast between them if you are going to combine fonts. The most important message you want to convey should catch the eye and attention of your audience. They should be the largest of the fonts so the Sans Serifs work great for those. Add a smaller serif or script to add some flair to the large font as a supporting design element.
Finding the right fonts to pair together can be challenging so let your creativity juices flow when trying to decide on what fonts to use. Play with them, see how they look, get your friend’s opinions, and sleep on it before making a decision. Take notes on what fonts you like to pair together as this will come in handy in the future when you want to add more designs to that line.
Font Licensing
Fonts can come with different licenses so it is important to know which ones you can use for your personal and commercial needs. Most free fonts are for personal-use only and come as shareware. This means that you can use them as long as you are not profiting from the products that you have them on. There are also fonts that are free for commercial use and may have limitations to what type of business you use them for.
Using a personal-use only font for your sublimation business can backfire on you. Some font owners actively search for their fonts on marketplaces such as FB and Etsy. They can message the sellers and ask for a copy of their receipt for the purchase as proof that they have the commercial license. If you are caught without one, it can be a hassle as the font owner can legally ask you for a share of the profits you’ve made from their font, ask you to pay a large amount for the violation, and the owner even has a right to file a copyright infringement on your shop. So if you want to run an honest and legitimate business, then it is recommended that you only use the fonts that you have a commercial licensing for.
If your intention is to eventually sell your sublimation products, it is best that you only download fonts with commercial license because keeping track of what is for personal-use only and what you can use for your business can get confusing.
Look at this example of a Premium License from FontBundles. It allows you to use it for personal and commercial use so that’s great. But make sure you read the entire license because it does have limitations.
How many fonts should be used in a design?
When choosing fonts, it is best to use no more than two (2) different fonts within one design and maximum is three (3). Any more than that will give you a cluttered look and can even become confusing to the readers.
Let’s take a look at this example. It is using 4 different fonts and it makes the design look patchy, disconnected, and cluttered. So keep the number of fonts to 2 within one design and it could have a better flow.
Legibility and readability
Choose fonts that read well for the audience then have a friend or two proofread it. Having another set of eyes to check your typography can be beneficial as they see things we may have missed.
Here are a couple of font fails that you don’t want to repeat. They may be funny and may be a great publicity for your business but do you want to be associated with this type of publicity? It’s your call.
Target Audience
Mood
Knowing your target audience will help narrow down what font to choose. If you mainly sell products that are geared for kids, then a playful font would work well. If you are selling Memorial Plaques, then a font that has a simple look will work well.
Style
The style of the font also plays a large role in your design. Farmhouse styles will need a rustic looking font whereas the Boho styles will work well with the modern fonts.
Which font format to save to your computer? TTF vs OTF
There are two font formats available, the TTF (True Type Font) or OTF (Open Type Font). TTF is the older font format extension that was developed in the late 80s. It has a glyph table that defined how each character looked. The OTF format is newer and supported by Mac OS X and Windows 2000 and later. OTF fonts supports more advanced typesetting features such as ligatures, alternates, and small caps within each font rather than a separate set of fonts. So if you have a choice, install the OTF format instead.
Organizing your fonts — If you are like me and hoards fonts or have hundreds, maybe thousands of fonts installed in your computer, stay tuned for our upcoming post on how to keep your fonts organized.
Your decision on what what to fonts to choose
There are many factors to consider when choosing fonts for your designs. Make sure your designs are not cluttered so limit the different types of fonts to 2 per design, know the target audience you are selling to, which type of fonts will work for your design, and make sure the fonts you choose actually convey the message you are trying to make. The guide above is just that…a guideline and not a hard set rule. Ultimately, it is up to you what to use and when to use them because you are the artist, the creative brains behind the design.
TELL US:
- What is your favorite font?
- How many fonts do you have?
