Fonts

The fonts used throughout a magazine are arguably the most import thing aesthetically so it is important that I choose the right fonts for all sections of my magazine. The most important thing I have to consider when choosing my fonts is whether or not they are suited to the genre of my magazine and if they would be appealing to my target audience.

In particular, the fonts on the front cover have to be especially appropriate as this what is seen first so the fonts chosen must be unique, distinctive and aesthetically pleasing whilst remaining conventional. The font I choose for the masthead of my magazine needs to be more of a display font oppose to a body font as display fonts are designed to be glanced at and not read at length whilst body fonts are the opposite. This does not mean I wish to use an overly decorative font as I want to keep my magazine simplistic but I would like the font to stand out from all the other text on the page. I want to use a bold font with tight spacing between the letters with edges that aren't too straight and with slight curves.

Furthermore, the fonts used both on the contents page and double page spread have to be less unique and distinctive and more practical with readability being the most important feature. If a decorative font is used for the body of the text, the audience will struggle to read the text and their minds will start to focus more on the font than the actual text and the text will be overlooked. Therefore, for the main body of the text I am looking to use a standard, simple font so that the text in the magazine can be absorbed easily by the audience.

Out of the text I have presented above, my personal favourites are Rockwell for the masthead font and Futura for the cover lines font. I like the Rockwell font as it is more of a traditional looking font with a slight modern edge which could work well as a masthead font as it would stand out from other text but would not be overly decorative. An example of a pre-existing magazine with a traditional font for its masthead would be Vouge and i think this works very well with the magazine. Futura appeals to me as a font for the cover lines as is is modern and simplistic which is what I was looking for in a font for the body of the text on the front cover as this font will allow the masthead to standout a lot more and not distract the audience from it, initially.

As I was not overly impressed with the fonts available on photoshop, I decided to research more into this on various websites and found a downloadable font that I really liked called "Coolvetica". This font was professionally designed from scratch and is a twist on the sans serif font Helvectia and is similar to fonts used throughout American chain stores in the 1970's. I like the font because of the slightly curved nature of it and also its tight spacing. I think this font will work really well as my masthead font.