Title: Read to a Dog
Purpose: To promote a library program where children can practice their reading skills with a registered therapy dog.
Materials Used: Canva
Function: To utilize two fonts to effective convey a message in an understandable way.
Process:
For this project I created a flyer based on a popular program that the public library I was previously employed with used to run called ‘Read to a Dog.’ As this is a program for children, I wanted the flyer to have a bright feel, so I chose a color palette to reflect that and utilized mainly primary colors. I went through quite a few fonts before I settled on the final typography design for this flyer. I initially began with Fredoka One for the main title of the piece ‘Read to a Dog.’ However, I found that while it was bold it felt too plain for a children’s program and as I was initially going to use lower case lettering in the body of the flyer wanted a font that would be easily readable at smaller sizes, and I found Fredoka One did not fit this. The next font pairing I tried was Open Sans Extra Bold which works well for a title, but, once again, it was not the most readable font at smaller sizes or when using lower case.
I decided to change my approach and began looking for a font that would be readable and not overbearing in all caps for the information on the flyer. I tried out a few serif fonts, but they didn’t really fit the mood of the flyer. I finally settled on a font called Lato even in all caps this font is friendly and readable. In the header, I made sure to bold the font to make sure Lato stand out more in the composition and serve as a lead in to the title. For the title I my aim was to find a font that was both bold and fun. I took some inspiration from children’s graphic novels. I settled on Chewy which is a more stylized sans serif font. Chewy has thicker counters and rounded terminals which give it an almost bubbly feel; however, it is still solid enough to carry weight in the composition. While I thought the title looked good in solid black, I felt that it was missing something to make it more attention grabbing. Setting the color to a shade of red that complements the blue and yellow that was already being used in the piece makes it function much better as a focal point in the flyer. All and all, I feel like Chewy and Lato complement each other well with a balance of function, readability, and fun.
