Welcome to my latest tutorial.

The use of fonts can bring a lot of traps to inexperienced artists.

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

 

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

# 1 Never use comic sans

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

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

 

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

Therefore, you should rather refrain from using this font.

 

If you like Comic Sans despite its design flaws, you should better use "Comic neue", an improved version of this font.

# 2 expand your portfolio

Depending on the operating system, only a few fonts are preinstalled.

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

 

But note the license conditions. Not every font may be used commercially.

# 3 Readability of fonts

In typography, a distinction is made between fonts with and without serifs.

For a simple distinction: serifs are fonts with an optical guidance.

This makes them particularly legible and, above all, popular in the print sector. They can be set with a small line spacing and are still easy to read.

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

That is why many websites like to use sans serif fonts.

For the lettering of comics, a decision between a pure capital font (high capture) or a font with upper and lower case letters can also be relevant.

The advantage of high capture fonts is that you cannot make any mistakes with regard to upper and lower case, which e.g. is a major source of error in the German language, but does not offer such a nice flow of reading.

With very text-heavy speech bubbles, a font with upper and lower case 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 gives you the ability to organize and manage your fonts. This can be particularly helpful if you always use the same fonts.

 

Click the gear next to "All Fonts"

Now a window opens. If you click on the field at 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 check mark appears.

Then click on "OK".

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

Now you only see the fonts that are in your list.

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

# 5 Change the (line) spacing

Many artists do not know at the beginning that you can change not only the spacing between the lines, but also the individual letters.

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

 

To do this, click on the wrench.

Mark the part of the text to be changed and change the spacing as you wish.

With a little gimmick, logos and font designs can be easily created.

# 6 Note the bleed *

A common mistake is that text elements are often placed too close to the edge.

This may not be that bad online, but it can result in text elements being cut off in printing or disappearing in book binding.

Here are a few examples.

To avoid this, you should always leave enough distance.

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

You can find more information in this tutorial:

 

 

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

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

# 7 Use guidelines

Guidelines cannot be very helpful when it comes to trimming. Do you want e.g. Place the title logo in the middle of a cover, you can use guidelines.

 

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

This is a great help to place the text perfectly.

# 8 Try out layer effects and properties.

For logos and co. offer themselves especially edge effects. Just like normal layers, you can also set borders and layer effects for text layers.

I hope I could help you with these simple tips.