Font Choice and Placement
Today I will show you how to pick good fonts for you signatures. These choices are in no means the "way it should be done", but more of a guide for you to follow in choosing a good font and making it look good.
Text Tool Basics
The BLUE highlighted area is the font choice.
The GREEN highlighted area is the font size. This should be equal to the read me supplied with most pixel fonts. Usually it will be 6px to 12px. Any higher value will make it look bad.
The RED highlighted area is the Ant Aliasing. Another important feature of pixel fonts is that you need to have all text Anti-Aliasing turned off. The reason is because they won’t truly be pixel fonts with that turned on.
And, of course, the YELLOW highlighted area is the color of your text.
Font Styles
Styles applied to fonts can make a huge impact on the presentation of the font. For example, An outer glow will make a font stand out more, where stroke may just add enough difference to make it more legible.
But what type of styles should we be using for text you ask? Simple, make it look good. You wouldn’t want to put an outer glow on yellow text, simply to make it stand out even more, because yellow stands out just enough by itself.
here is an example of a very poor font style on a signature:
And a relatively good style used on a signature. Note I did some blending using the eraser tool:
I applied an inner glow, and an outer glow, and put the fill opacity to zero.
Font Placement
For signatures, of course, you probably want to promote your site, or your name. More than likely you will want to put your text somewhere on that sig. But what if, for example you have a piece of art that isn’t a signature. Where would you put your text?
Well, simply look back at traditional art. A lot of pieces have borders with the text on the bottom. Similar to this:
Now you will notice that I used a black border. Very simple, and it doesn’t take away from the actual piece. I know that this is just a sample, but you can see its significance. The text is very legible, and should represent the piece.
You don’t want to put your text onto the piece itself because that will ruin it! Why put all that hard work into a masterpiece to have it ruined in seconds by some crappy font? Well, simply don’t do that!!
Other things you should try and stay away from are long poems on top of your signatures. No one is really going to read them. If you really want to get your point across, do so in the actual piece itself, don’t let a poem express the feelings for you.
For signatures, the better places to put text are usually on the outside, or in the corners. If those places don’t fit, try to make the text blend with your image, use transformation tools to get it to the place you want. but DONT slap it on top and call it good!
The font placement should be just as thought out as the actual image itself.
SIZE MATTERS!!!!!
Yes, it’s true. Size does matter, especially with the presentation of your image. If you want the text to dominate the piece, then chances are your going to want a very large font size. But usually you don’t want this, simply because it’s annoying, and distracts the viewer.
Take this for example:
Obviously, this image portrays snowboarding, and it’s very obvious that the creator wants to show snowboarding off. But a lot of people already know what snowboarding is, and can probably figure it out by looking at the picture, so why use the big distracting text? it’s really not necessary. Instead, maybe try something like this:
Make it legible!!!
Yes, I have seen a lot of images where text is not readable. It is very hard to get across to your audience when you text is hard to read. Some basic things you should remember when choosing a font, is how easy each letter can be seen. A bad font choice would be something like this:
Believe it or not, that says Bad font. That is really hard to read, and not a very good font choice. Here is a good font:
The Pixel Font
The pixel font is a good choice for any image. But preferably, more on tech and trendy images. And of course, any image that you don’t want to text to be the center of attention. Go here and grab some pixel fonts.
Dafont.com
Here is an example of a well placed pixel font on a signature
Note that I did not want it to take away from the image at all, or add to it. I simply just wanted it there
The Grunge Based Font
Now, unlike the pixel font, the grunge font has a very specific use. For dark images. At least, this is where it looks best. All I can say about grunge fonts is that they are very hard to come by.
So, all I’m going to do is link you to some of my favorites.
Note that all fonts are copyright there respectful owners.
Another good tip for grunge fonts is that they should be blended very well with the image. It shouldn’t look slapped onto the image, but more blended with it.
And another good use on grunge signatures is Stencil fonts.
Conclusion
Font choice is a very important part of your image. It should not be the last thing considered, and it definitely should not just be slapped on to the piece. Some quick reminders:
I hope you learned a thing or two from this tutorial. If you need another tutorial on placement. You may check out my perspective text tutorial found HERE.
Text Tool Basics
The BLUE highlighted area is the font choice.
The GREEN highlighted area is the font size. This should be equal to the read me supplied with most pixel fonts. Usually it will be 6px to 12px. Any higher value will make it look bad.
The RED highlighted area is the Ant Aliasing. Another important feature of pixel fonts is that you need to have all text Anti-Aliasing turned off. The reason is because they won’t truly be pixel fonts with that turned on.
And, of course, the YELLOW highlighted area is the color of your text.
Font Styles
Styles applied to fonts can make a huge impact on the presentation of the font. For example, An outer glow will make a font stand out more, where stroke may just add enough difference to make it more legible.
But what type of styles should we be using for text you ask? Simple, make it look good. You wouldn’t want to put an outer glow on yellow text, simply to make it stand out even more, because yellow stands out just enough by itself.
here is an example of a very poor font style on a signature:
And a relatively good style used on a signature. Note I did some blending using the eraser tool:
I applied an inner glow, and an outer glow, and put the fill opacity to zero.
Font Placement
For signatures, of course, you probably want to promote your site, or your name. More than likely you will want to put your text somewhere on that sig. But what if, for example you have a piece of art that isn’t a signature. Where would you put your text?
Well, simply look back at traditional art. A lot of pieces have borders with the text on the bottom. Similar to this:
Now you will notice that I used a black border. Very simple, and it doesn’t take away from the actual piece. I know that this is just a sample, but you can see its significance. The text is very legible, and should represent the piece.
You don’t want to put your text onto the piece itself because that will ruin it! Why put all that hard work into a masterpiece to have it ruined in seconds by some crappy font? Well, simply don’t do that!!
Other things you should try and stay away from are long poems on top of your signatures. No one is really going to read them. If you really want to get your point across, do so in the actual piece itself, don’t let a poem express the feelings for you.
For signatures, the better places to put text are usually on the outside, or in the corners. If those places don’t fit, try to make the text blend with your image, use transformation tools to get it to the place you want. but DONT slap it on top and call it good!
The font placement should be just as thought out as the actual image itself.
SIZE MATTERS!!!!!
Yes, it’s true. Size does matter, especially with the presentation of your image. If you want the text to dominate the piece, then chances are your going to want a very large font size. But usually you don’t want this, simply because it’s annoying, and distracts the viewer.
Take this for example:
Obviously, this image portrays snowboarding, and it’s very obvious that the creator wants to show snowboarding off. But a lot of people already know what snowboarding is, and can probably figure it out by looking at the picture, so why use the big distracting text? it’s really not necessary. Instead, maybe try something like this:
Make it legible!!!
Yes, I have seen a lot of images where text is not readable. It is very hard to get across to your audience when you text is hard to read. Some basic things you should remember when choosing a font, is how easy each letter can be seen. A bad font choice would be something like this:
Believe it or not, that says Bad font. That is really hard to read, and not a very good font choice. Here is a good font:
The Pixel Font
The pixel font is a good choice for any image. But preferably, more on tech and trendy images. And of course, any image that you don’t want to text to be the center of attention. Go here and grab some pixel fonts.
Dafont.com
Here is an example of a well placed pixel font on a signature
Note that I did not want it to take away from the image at all, or add to it. I simply just wanted it there
The Grunge Based Font
Now, unlike the pixel font, the grunge font has a very specific use. For dark images. At least, this is where it looks best. All I can say about grunge fonts is that they are very hard to come by.
So, all I’m going to do is link you to some of my favorites.
Note that all fonts are copyright there respectful owners.
Another good tip for grunge fonts is that they should be blended very well with the image. It shouldn’t look slapped onto the image, but more blended with it.
And another good use on grunge signatures is Stencil fonts.
Conclusion
Font choice is a very important part of your image. It should not be the last thing considered, and it definitely should not just be slapped on to the piece. Some quick reminders:
- Use relative sizes - don’t overpower the image with the text
- Use relative colors - keep the colors consistent with the majority of the image.
- User a border if possible - Putting your text on a border looks more professional.
- Use the right font - Choosing a good font is hard. Make it look good.
I hope you learned a thing or two from this tutorial. If you need another tutorial on placement. You may check out my perspective text tutorial found HERE.
