Monthly Archives: August 2019

Designer’s Most Hated & Loved Fonts

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Fonts

The font that is used in a design to communicate a message is very much crucial as it represents the language. Gone are those days when the designers only have to choose between the Arial and Time New Roman fonts. With the advent of modern design technology, now the designers can choose from thousands of fonts. With so many fonts, it has now become more difficult for designers to select a particular one. Some fonts automatically feel more official, while others feel like fun. Some fonts are easier to read, and others are more difficult to read and create a struggle for the eyes.

What professional designers do is to use fonts that are widely popular and fonts that look more professional. The more experienced the designer is, the more is his efficiency to choose a perfect typeface. They use the fonts that they love the most. However, there are many fonts that designers dislike to use. Mentioned below is a discussion about the fonts that designers love and hate the most.

Most Loved Fonts:

Helvetica:

Helvetica is considered the most loved font by the designers. It was introduced in the late 1950s by two Swiss designers who were trying to create a new version of Sans-serif typeface. According to the designers, Helvetica and other Sans-serif fonts are the cleanest and easiest to read. These types of fonts are mainly used for online reading since they are easy to read. Since its inception, Helvetica has become the most commonly used fonts by the designers. Designers love this font, and they use it most in official printing, signals, and notices. Helvetica is the only font which was documented in a film in 2007, named Helvetica.

Garamond:

Garamond is another serif which was named after the typeface during the time of renaissance. It was named after its creator Claude Garamond. Like Helvetica, Garamond is the most loved fonts and commonly used by the designers because they are easy to read and leaves a comfortable impression to the eyes of the readers. Another reason why designers love it the most because it adds a sense of poetry to the letters. However, unlike Helvetica, Garamond is most commonly used for offline design and print copies.

Frutiger:

It is another font that was introduced in the late 1960’s Sans-serif. Since its inception, Frutiger has added many updated versions to its family. Frutiger also has a specially licensed version to Microsoft. Designers love the font because it is clean in appearance and gives a modern look. It is also easily readable without feeling stark. Frutiger is the most common font which can be seen in advertising collaterals.

Bodoni:

Another unusual font which was introduced in the 18th century. Designers from almost all parts of the world love this font because of its classic look. Its alternating thick lines recognize it within a single letter that gives it a high dimension. This gives it a familiar look to the typefaces that were used in 18th and 19th-century books and documents.

Most Hated Fonts:

Comic Sans:

Designed and releases in 1994, Comic Sans is based on the familiar letters used in comic books. Although these types of fonts are used in many prints, most designers dislike using comic sans due to its widespread use in the wrong situations.

Papyrus:

Designers do not like papyrus, perhaps because of its rough and unbalanced look of the letterform. However, some designers appreciate their accessibility. However, in general, designers hate this font compared to more generic fonts like Times or Arial.

Souvenir:

An influential American designer Morris Fuller developed this font in 1914. It first came into the limelight when it appeared on Bee Gees Album cover designs. However, with new fonts are introduced, Souvenir has become outdated, and many designers consider it as a silly and foolish font. Designers don’t love its soft yet graphic appearance.

2012 Headline:

2012 Headline has become famous since its use in the London Olympic font. What designers hate about this font is that it tries so hard to look cool, but it simply is not. It also creates a confounding effect on the eyes of a reader because it has a perfectly round O. 2012 Headline was not used much after the London Olympic Games.

What are the Best Practices, Tips & Inspiration for Brilliant Landing Pages

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Landing Pages

If you are running ad campaigns and looking to generate quality leads, you need to focus your effort on creating a high-quality landing page that visitors land on when they click the ads. This is the reason why you need to create a high-quality landing page that generates leads. The landing page is an essential part of your website because they are used as a tool to drive conversions. Using a poor landing page means all your efforts are going in vain. As a marketer, your strategy should be to optimize your landing pages and include the best content and design in the same.

Why Should You Not Use Your Home Page as the Landing Pages?

There are a lot of advertisers who are not sure about the difference between a landing page and the home page. However, your landing page should not be confused with the website home page. There are some essential differences between the landing page and home page. If you use your home page as the landing page in the ad campaigns and try to direct the visits to your home page – this idea will likely kill your conversions.

The home page is designed in such a way so that it presents the company’s value and help them navigate through the other content pages. On the other hand, the landing page is designed to showcase an offer or a discount with brilliant content so that the users immediately understand your offer and take action on it. A high-quality landing page should include an active call to actions, and every action on the landing page should direct the users to a specific action.

Don’t Use Home Page Navigation Menus on Your Landing Pages:

The landing page should include only one link, and under any circumstances, it should not contain the home page navigation menus. Also, the landing page should not promote your social media accounts. The landing page should only contain a unique link that is attractive enough for the visitors to take action. It is a common mistake to include any link on your landing page that distracts the visitors for the actual offer. According to recent research, the most successful landing pages contain only one link.

Use an Enticing Headline That Match Your Offer:

The ideal landing page should contain a bold and attractive headline at the above the fold section of the page. The above the fold section is the part of the page that users can view without scrolling the page down. The headline and another essential call to actions of a landing page should be present within the above the fold section. The headline should be enticing enough to grab the attention of your target visitors. The headline should also match the main message that you are trying to promote.

Only use Contents that Are Useful for Your Visitors:

No matter how long your landing page is, it should only contain the contents and images that are useful to the visitors. Great landing page can be short as there are no hard and fast rules to dictate the word count in a landing page. The thing that only matters is the quality of the content you are using in your landing page. The main point is to offer value to your users through the content. If the users find your content valuable, they will surely take a specific action. To help conversions, you can consider adding images, videos, and animations that help showcase the pain points and probable solutions.

Make it Simple:

The last thing you should care about your landing page is to make it very simple so that it doesn’t distract your visitors. Landing pages are built to forces users to take specific action so that you achieve conversions. Therefore, you should not use redundant contents or information that prevent the visitors to make the actual action.

Why Your Business Needs Social Media to Increase Traffic

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Social Media

Since the number of Worldwide social media users have crossed .34 billion, it is an excellent opportunity for the businesses to reach a broad base of audience. Since these users spend a quality amount of time on social media rather than searching websites, it enhances the possibility to get the users as customers by the help of social media pages. A survey found that out of 537 social media users, 463 people reach a business’s website from social media. Although having a website is an urgent requisition for digital marketing, social media channels have become an essential part of digital marketing. At present, 78% of businesses have a website, while 81% of companies use social media channels.

A famous survey brand surveyed over 500 social media users to learn how they get influenced by social media to visit the website of a business, and the findings are:

  • To contact a business provider for general queries, 31% of people prefer to use email, 21% of people prefer social media and 19% of people prefer to use the contact form of a company website. Rest of the people likes to use chatbots.
  • 27% of promotional offers and 25% of images of a business website are visited when a person reaches to that by using social media.
  • The decision of the millennials to visit a website is increased by the images of social media.
  • 38% of baby boomers, 29% of millennials, and 29% of generation X people are influenced by the offer and promotional campaigns on social media channels.

There are various types of social media channels preset in the present scenario, among them, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Snapchat, etc. are worthy of mention. The more a business is active on social media channels, the better the possibilities it has to increase its customer and boost its sales.

Here are some advantages of using social media to increase traffic for business:

Helps to stay competitive: Social media channels help a business to enhance its brand awareness among its target audience. If the business is a small one, it must make a continuous online presence to maintain the reputation as this will make the customers think the business as a constant and trustworthy one. Statistics say that around 46% percent of customers prefer to stay with small business when it chooses an efficient marketing campaign through social media.

Helps in advertisement campaigns: For small businesses or new businesses, it is a big challenge to invest a significant amount in promotional campaigns and advertisements. For them, social media channels are a significant relief as advertisements in those channels are free most of the time, allowing the business to reach more potential customers without spending a massive sum of money.

Boosts SEO performance: The primary goal of a business is to present itself as a trustworthy brand in the market and for doing so, making an online presence and position through the Search Engine Result Pages (SERP) is very important. Posting keyword packed campaigns on the social channels helps the business boost its SEO rank on a leading search engine.

Images influence the customers: Since the new and younger generation like to find information visually, they dislike reading much. Models provide them the information they seek in a fast and easy way. The social media campaigns are widely images based, unlike the textual subscription found on a website. The discount offers, product descriptions, new launches, offerings, etc. are described in the images without using many stories. It makes them interested enough to visit the website of the business. Images with attractive graphic design, explicit photography, and short but adequate informative points are necessary for a successful social media campaign.

Customer references: When a satisfied customer sees the campaigns of the business in his social media account pages, he or she likes to refer it to others, expanding the target audience of the brand. Also, social media advertisements sometimes promote their loyal customers through various campaigns, and those loyal customers choose to pay back by sharing it to others.

Customer satisfaction: Since social media nowadays has become a form of customer feedback, it allows a business to get in touch with the customers quickly. A dissatisfied customer can connect the business through social media to resolve the reason of the dissatisfaction, and once done, he or she can post about the experience online, making an indirect promotional campaign of the business.

Covers all demography: Since the vast world of social media is free and has no barriers for anyone, people of all demography can be found online, making social media a potential platform of digital marketing. People of different ages, different races, religions, income groups can see the presence of a business on social media, which expands the target audience field.

Conclusion: We can conclude that social media has now become a crucial part of digital marketing. Its cost-efficiency helps a business to make out of the most without spending much money. Also, it helps to promote trade in the target audience and get real-time feedback from the consumers.

Top 5 Serif Fonts for Clean & Elegant Logo Design

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Serif Fonts

Which fonts are better: the Sans-Serif fonts or the Serif fonts? This question is one of the most argued questions in the graphic designing industry. Some say that the Serif fonts are better for the printed materials while the Sans-Serif fonts are suitable for online campaigns. At first, one needs to know what are the primary differences between the two types of these fonts and for which purpose they are widely used so far.

Sans-Serif fonts: The word ‘Sans’ came from the French language, which means ‘without’ and the word ‘Serif’ possibly came from the Dutch language, saying line or stroke. Sans-Serif fonts do not have extended stokes or lines at the end of the letters. These fonts are generally clean and straightforward, without any ornamental features, so they are widely used for headings. For writings on the digital medium, Sans-Serif fonts are used as they are readable at any resolution and from any length of distance.

Serif fonts: In typography, Serif fonts have letters with lines or strokes in the end. In spite of this, the advantage of using Serif font is that they can be read with comfort in the rough book paper. However, some say that Serif fonts are not appropriate for online or digital readability since those additional strokes in a letter can misguide the audience for another note due to distance or low resolution. Nowadays, graphic designers are successfully using these fonts in the logos, headings as well as in the body part of the text. There are mainly four types of Serif fonts- Old style, Transitional, Didone, and Slab Serif.

Serif Fonts in Logo Design

So what are the characteristic features of an excellent logo? A good logo must be simple, memorable, timeless, versatile, and appropriate. A logo represents a company graphically. It is a visual element which helps a business to create its own brand identity without much explanation. This is why a logo is mandatorily printed on the products, campaigns, advertisements, and websites of a company.

For the last fifteen years, Sans Serif fonts dominated the world of logo designs with fewer exceptions but now, thanks to better experiments with typography, designers are using Serif fonts to create clear and robust logo designs. Here are seven Serif fonts which are making a bold visual impact in logo design.

Hermann: One of the most readable Serif fonts is Hermann, which was designed by Diego Arvena and Salvador Rodriguez, in 2018. Inspired by the works of Herman Hesse and Aldous Huxley, these two designers implied surrealism and duality along with boldness and wildness in the design. Consequently, the font comes in ten variations mixing accuracy with legibility and boldness.

Recoleta: This font merges various fonts used in the past to present a new font filled with freshness and modernity. Blending the gentle, soft shapes in the Cooper font and the fluid angled strokes in Windsor, Jorge Cisterna cheated this beautiful font perfectly suitable for unique logo designs. Offering a variety of weights, this font allows the user to choose the best typographic color for his project.

ITC Lubalin Graph: This font belongs to the Slab- serif font group, and it helps the logo to convey a sturdy and no-nonsense look. With lighter weights, this font adds a modern and eye-grabbing feature in the design. Although ITC Lubalin Graph was designed in 1974, this design was based on another design by Herb Lubalin called ITC Avant-Garde.

Linotype Didot: Adrian Frutiger’s tribute to the Didot family of France who was active designers for abbot 100 years during the 18th and 19th centuries. They were printers, typeface designers, publishers, inventors, and intellectuals. This family-owned the essential foundry and print shop in France in this era. This font design is a sensitive interpretation of the French Monotype Didot. This font is capable of adding a classic and elegant feature in the logos. Apart from logos, this is excellent for headings of books, magazines, posters, and advertisements.

Gabriela Stencil: Suitable for fancy logos and headlines, this font puts stress on the modern and elegant font style, borrowing inspiration from the Didone typefaces from the 19th century. Designed by Antonio Mejia 2016, this font is also ideal for short texts, publishing projects, and branding. Although it belongs to the Serif family, it is highly readable since it has short ascenders and descenders. It comes in six styles containing a set of 433 characters which can be used in 200 different languages.

Conclusion:

A clean and elegant serif font style not only adds sophistication to the design, but it adds an exciting flair and breaks the dullness of the design as well. Experimental logo designers prefer the Serif fonts as the various types of the strokes or flares help the logo capture the mood of the products and grab the attention of the audience being different from the other designs.