Welcome to my latest tutorial.

Using fonts can present a lot of pitfalls for inexperienced artists.

Today I want to give you 8 tips for using fonts.

 

Many of the tips relate to mistakes I made myself at the beginning ;)

#1 Never Use Comic Sans

A typical beginner's mistake when using fonts is to use Comic Sans.

I also made this mistake and chose this font for my first manga. Comic Sans is pre-installed on most computers, and because it looks very comic-like and is also called "Comic," it is often used by beginners.

 

However, Comic Sans is considered a very bad font because it contradicts many standards and basic rules of typography. Anyone who uses Comic Sans shows that they had little knowledge of graphic design, and its use looks very unprofessional.

Therefore, you should refrain from using this font.

 

If you like Comic Sans despite its design flaws, you should opt for "Comic neue," an improved version of this typeface.

#2 Expand Your Portfolio

Depending on your operating system, only a few fonts are pre-installed.

On sites like dafont.com, you can find thousands of fonts that you can use for free. You can even filter them by occasion and style.

 

However, pay attention to the license terms. Not every font may be used commercially.

#3 Font Readability

In typography, a distinction is made between serif and sans-serif fonts, among others.

For easy distinction: Serifs are fonts with an optical guide.

This makes them particularly readable and especially popular in print. They can be set with a small line spacing and are still easy to read.

However, this applies mainly to print: In the web, serif fonts can lead to problems if they are not optimally displayed due to the lower resolution and the angular monitor grid.

Therefore, many websites prefer to use sans-serif fonts.

For comic lettering, a decision between an all-caps font (High Capture) or a font with both uppercase and lowercase letters can also become relevant.

High Capture fonts offer the advantage that you cannot make mistakes regarding capitalization, which is a major source of error in the German language, for example, but they do not provide as nice a reading flow.

For very text-heavy speech bubbles, a font with uppercase and lowercase letters is easier to read. For less text-heavy speech bubbles, a High Capture font can be more pleasant.

 

 

#4 Manage Your Fonts

Clip Studio Paint offers the ability to organize and manage your fonts. This can be especially helpful if you use the same fonts repeatedly.

 

Click on the gear icon next to "All Fonts"

Now a window will open. If you click on the field in the bottom left with the letter A, you can create a new font list

Now click on the new list and select the fonts that this list should contain.

When a font is selected, a checkmark appears.

Then click "OK".

If you now click on "All Fonts," your lists will appear. Now select the appropriate one.

You will now only see the fonts contained in your list.

The lists can be expanded and changed as desired. So don't hesitate to use them.

#5 Change the (Line) Spacing

Many artists initially don't know that they can change not only the spacing between lines but also between individual letters.

This function can be very important, especially when designing merchandise and covers.

 

To do this, click on the wrench icon.

Select the text part to be changed and adjust the spacing as desired.

With a little bit of playing around, you can easily create logos and font designs this way.

#6 Mind the Bleed*

A common mistake is placing text elements too close to the edge.

This might not be a big deal online, but it can lead to text elements being cut off in print or disappearing in book binding.

Here are a few examples.

To avoid this, you should always leave enough margin.

Clip Studio has great templates with guidelines ready for you for comics.

You can find more details in this tutorial:

 

 

For illustrations, you should maintain at least 3 mm distance from the edge. Guidelines can be very helpful for this.

The blue border shows you the safe area for text, and the red border shows the bleed, which will no longer be visible in the finished printed product.

#7 Use Guidelines

Guidelines can be very helpful not only concerning bleed. For example, if you want to center a title logo on a cover, you can use guidelines for this.

 

If you click on the text or transform the logo layer, a box will appear around this element with a cross in the middle.

This is a great help for perfectly positioning the text.

#8 Try Layer Effects and Properties.

For logos and such, edge effects are particularly suitable. Just like with normal layers, you can also set borders and layer effects for text layers.

I hope these simple tips were helpful to you.