If everybody had the same face, the world would be a dull place. The uniqueness of each individual person would be diminished by the uniformity of their looks. The same can be said about the font face that you use in your slideshow presentations.
Look, we all love Times New Roman. It’s been ingrained into our heads since early Windows to be the end-all default font of choice. And why not? It’s a clean, simple serif font that is easy to read.
In other words, it’s boring.
If you stick with Times New Roman because it’s the “safe” font of choice then you are missing out on the full palette of text that is available to you. Using font to enhance your visuals and to drive home key issues is essential if you want to razzle-dazzle your audience.
Serif or Sans Serif
You may have noticed that some of the fonts on your computer have “Sans Serif” or simply “Sans” at the end of their name. What this indicates is that the font is without serif. Well that’s all fine and dandy, but you are probably asking yourself what a serif is and why some fonts tend to go without.
Times New Roman is a serif font. That’s because in Times New Roman, there are tiny flourishes added to the ends of the letters. Consider the “T” in Times New Roman. Notice the little lines hanging off the ends of the top line, jutting in towards the body of the “T?” That’s a serif!
So sans serif fonts are fonts without the extra fluff. These fonts are often used in flyers or advertisements because they are bold and stand out. So, if you want to break free of the Times New Roman hold, try grabbing their attention with a sans serif font.
Just, stay away from Comic Sans. It’s design poison, for some reason. It’s the only font that can make your presentation go from professional looking to amateur hour instantly.
It doesn’t matter which style you use, serif or sans, as long as you stick with one or the other throughout the entire presentation.
Not How it Looks, But How You Use It
Many fonts will have completely different results when typed in boldface, italics or even when the color is changed. By using the wide range of styles available, you can use the same font throughout your presentation, but achieve a different look from slide to slide. Some fonts will look better blown up to large proportions and some text was simply made for smaller sizes.
You can use different fonts in different ways to create visuals for your audience in place of a picture or image. This is best shown in the Takahashi Method which uses only text. Certain fonts are definitely more picturesque than others and can be used to create a harmony between text and imagery.
Font for Free
There are a wide range of websites out there that offer free downloads of amazing fonts for absolutely free. Installing fonts are as easy as copy and pasting a font file into your computer’s font folder, so there’s no reason you can’t find the perfect typeface for your presentation.
A few favorite destinations would include Fontalicious.com, Fontbros.com and Dafont.com. Each of these websites offers a unique blend of free font downloads ranging from professional to punk-inspired.
With Time New Roman being the default font for a lot of the text we read in our every day lives, use of it in a presentation can make your slides boring. You don’t want your audience to confuse your presentation with the handouts you pass out afterwards. Don’t put them to sleep with a block of boring text. Experiment with fonts to improve the overall look of your slideshow!
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