E-Learning Heroes - Advice and ideas from the Articulate Community

Hi David,

I think the links you provided are pointing to the wrong site. In your post of Posted Friday, April 08, 2011 at 6:42 AM -

the links point to a discussion and templates around Mindmaps (which is cool too) but not about fonts.

i am very curious about the template you mention and was hoping you could post the correct link?

thanks

Geoff

BTW - - Hand of Sean is NOT free for commercial use. 
Most of the free fonts out there are free for personal use, or NGO and educational use.  

Hi Geoff - In that link I posted, I reference the design mapping process I use to match fonts with course topics. The process involves more than fonts (elements, colors, people) but font selection is a big part of it. The main idea is that fonts, like people, have personalities and the design map walks through how to describe a topic's characteristics and use those terms to search and select fonts.

But maybe you were looking for something else? If so, please let us know and we'll do our best to source some additional resources.

I really like the clean look of Century Gothic and I have read it's a great font for printing as it uses less ink than Verdana and Arial.

But does anyone know if it's not as good for screen?

Great discussion thread by the way, good ideas and shared resources.

@Jeremy - Century Gohic is a nice font. As a system font, I like it for topics like leadership, coaching and non-compliance topics. A commercial font I use in place of Century is Chalet collection--mostly Paris 1980. 

As a side note, Century is probably better for headlines and titles and headlines more than body text. EschoolNews published an article around Century's lower printing costs. The downside? Ink costs went down and paper costs went up. Turns out that while Century Gothic is a lighter font, it is a much wider font so the number of pages increased. 

Hi David. Interesting point about Century Gothic's width.

Thanks for the font recommendation, it looks great.

...and don't forget, smaller fonts take up less hard disk space.

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Bruce

Good point, Bruce. That's why mini pixel fonts are so popular.

Absolutely David!

I need a new PC, (running below 10% free), so I create all my Storyline courses using a 1pt font, and then just apply the "Zoom Slide" setting throughout the entire course.

Has SIGNIFICANTLY increased the shelf-life of my hardware....

Bruce

In consultation to my clients when they want to implement eLearning, i always recommend the following fonts:

1. Verdana

2. Arial

3. Articulate (font is pretty good to use too.)

4. Berlin Sans

Font will also depend on your target audience. If your audience is mostly children, you can consider kidisd or cartoony font like Kristen to add the "fun" element.

Like Chris our company font is Arial as well (actually it is Helvetica but since you'd have to pay a license fee for every user the alternative is Arial). In my elearning courses I use it as well but when I want something to stand out I often use the Hand of Sean font (with or without a nice organic arrow). I always change the color either to reflect the theme or just bright red as if I scibbled it in with a red pen. Seems to work perfectly as I get a lot of questions about the handwritten font and the use is widely adopted.

Have you noticed that most on-line newspapers use fonts with serifs. New York Times uses (I think) Georgia. Its page design and text blocks are wonderfully clear and easy to read. I think there is a move away from Arial, Calibri and non-serif fonts.

I read somewhere that Helvetia is clearest font and used for public signs - but I don't know if it is clearer than a serifed font when used in text?

Any views on this?

Hi All,,,

Can any one say, how to create a e learning portfolio website. and what attributes to be placed there.

Can share your websites too, 

I worked with a Project Manager who didn't like drop shadows, and instead wanted me to "add more layers in Adobe, so it's taller off the page".....

I deserve a Emmy for keeping my face still.

Seems a perfectly reasonable request to me..... 

Bruce

Funnier ones I've heard:

- Can I get SCORM in a different color.

- A pixel in Toolbook is different than a pixel in Photoshop (this person was adamant)

Interestingly, (or not...depending on your perspective on life...),

I recently had a big client who had a corporate font - Kievit-OT (in various variants).

In order to do a spectacular and wonderful job for them I had to purchase this from the font foundry that owns it.

When I created and compiled the course in SL, there were a variety of differences between "their version" of the font and the current "available for purchase" version of the font.

Even when you are doing things the correct and the costly way - fonts can be a confusing little bag of bytes.

Bruce

I'll never use arial again -- why make your course look everyone elses?   Robin Williams' Design for Non-Designers does a wonderful job on how to mix fonts. If you dig art, you should really be digging fonts, too.

 I think as far as choosing a font, you should ask your client what kind of vibe they want the training to have -- serious, playful, adventurous, etc. What personality do they want the training to have. Fonts give your course personality.

As far as title size, I usually go with 28 or so. Larger than that can look dorky.  Text on-screen usually between 18 and 22 depending on visuals.

+1 for Daniel's comments above.

There seem to be two camps here - the people who are able to go and search the foundries for interesting and "playful" (etc.) fonts and those who are not.

I'm currently working with a multinational, but the recommended fonts in the Style Guide are Calibri and Arial, which are not exactly going to set the World alight visually...

I can understand why corporates have guidelines for Marketing material, flyers, website etc. however, in many cases they do not mention "eLearning". Perhaps there's an opportunity for IDs to explore whether our creative process comes outside the boundaries of the current guidelines? It's a bit like them saying "Paint us a picture only using red and purple" - certainly I would question that request.

Bruce

I have always just *said* that elearning falls outside the bounds of corporate marketing guidelines, and people believe it. If they look dubious, I start talking about learning effectiveness, immersive design, etc. until they get bored and move on.

Actually, I have never had to go to the mat over branding or using a standard template for every course, thank goodness!

I really love the google web fonts - didn't see those linked in the thread.

LOL - you sound like my kind of person

Bruce