One of the classes I went to yesterday here at Photoshop World was a class on typography for professional photographers — as in text titles for wedding photo album covers, online galleries, photo books and things like that.
The lessons translate really well to movie poster text and pictures for blogging, too, like when you add a caption or title to an image at the top of your blog posts, which a lot of us do.
The course was taught by Scott Kelby, an awesome photographer and the author of more than 50 books on photography and Photoshop, many of which I love and own.
10 Really Useful Fonts for Bloggers
- Helvetica Neue (Target, MTV)
- Trajan Pro (probably the most popular movie poster font)
- Futura
- Gill Sans (official font for the UK Underground tube signs)
- Trebuchet (Microsoft loves this font. It’s a good option whenever you think Helvetica looks too stiff)
- Adobe Garamond (the original Apple font, also the Google logo font, but it’s not great for long blocks of text)
- Bickham Script Pro (a great font for scripty effects)
- Copperplate (looks great, elegant with a lot of kerning/space between the letters)
- Minion (Adobe loves Minion; it’s a good alternative to Times New Roman)
- Myriad (Apple loves Myriad and uses a version of it for practically everything)
For your next blog post, or if you ever have to create a document for school or work, give one of these fonts a try. Most of them should already be installed on your computer, as a few of them are decades old. Some even predate computers.
Your friendly neighborhood beauty addict,
Karen
P.S. While not makeup related, I think fonts are beautiful, which falls under the purview of “makeup and beauty” to me. 🙂 I’m filing this post under my “blogging” category, and there are quite a few other posts in there as well, if you’re interested.
I really like Helvetica Neue, Adobe Garamond, Copperplate and Minion. 🙂
Ooh! Those are some great fonts right there, Laure. You named some of my faves, especially helvetica neue ultra light.
Sorry to be obnoxious, but it’s Gill Sans, and it actually isn’t the typeface used for the Underground. Eric Gill was a student under Edward Johnston and assisted him in the creation of the Underground font (named Johnston). He then went on to create Gill Sans, which took inspiration from Johnston’s typeface. Gill Sans was formerly used for British Railways and London and North Eastern Railway (which may be why its commonly confused) and is considered the Helvetica of the U.K. It’s currently most visible in its use for BBC logo and the British Government materials and remains one of the most popular typefaces today. Also, to be pedantic, you’re referring to typefaces not fonts (“font is what you use, and typeface is what you see”). I love your appreciation for typeface and design, though! It is notable in all of your posts.
Hi Jennifer,
You’re neither being obnoxious nor pedantic! I appreciate the knowledge. You sound like even more of a font/typography geek than I am!
Do you have a favorite typeface?
Haha glad you weren’t insulted! I’m actually a big fan of Gill Sans, no surprise. And my favorite serif font is Garamond, which I think is validated by its being the chosen font for the Harry Potter series! I am a big typeface snob! I even bought one of those customized typefaces made from your own handwriting, and it was super disappointing – I painstakingly made sure the letters would connect, but they added space around each character, so it just looks awkward!
If I’ll ever do a beauty blog, everything will be done in Comic Sans. And the headers in Papyrus!
These fonts are all so interesting.
These days I really love University and Tahoma. Trajan Pro is great too.
Very useful, thanks Karen!
Oh, Karen, I would have loved that typography class. You must have been in font heaven.
On a side note, you are truly a saint. I wish I had 1/10 of your patience and grace. I’d be a much better person. 🙂
This is very helpful. Thanks for posting!
I love this article, switching the fonts on my blog as we speak.
http://www.StyleBySheena.com