I followed another bloggers tweet to his posts about blogging. Now this seemed like the perfect set of posts for me to read. I wanted to see what advice he had about blogging that might help me. What he’d experienced that I hadn’t. And the site did help me with this, but probably not in the way my fellow blogger expected. Because after a couple of paragraphs, my attention was grabbed and held hostage by the font he chose for his titles. It’s not a font I’ve worked with or have in my font arsenal, and I have been able to track down exactly which font it is. But it looks like a font that would be used on the title of a Harry Potter book. It’s a font for a kid’s book about wizards.
Now, the wizard font would probably be perfect for a blog written for kid’s studying to be wizards. Or even on a site for adults themed around games, fun or humor. But I’m an adult living in an adult world and this is a blog that wants to present the writer as an expert on the subject of blogging. The problem is the font screams — don’t take me seriously!
When you design your blog, keep an eye on the font and make sure that you really are choosing a font that is appropriate for the subject of your blog and the age of your audience. There are a number of “business safe” fonts out there that you can choose from for a professional appearance. If you don’t like Times New Roman, you can check out Verdana, Arial or similar fonts. But leave the fancy fonts behind — unless you run a business, like planning children’s parties, where a fancy font would be appropriate.