Three Fonts You Should Never Use Professionally

Sometimes the first thing someone sees of us is in writing – it might be our online profile, a website or maybe a snail mail letter or advertisement.

So it is super important to consciously shape our brand image by choosing the right fonts and look to reflect what we want to be remembered for. And you want to be remembered as awesome, professional and upbeat and not some daggy, has been right?

So to help you shape your personal or company brand, I am going to put on my hat and become the FONT POLICE and kick those overused fonts to the curb!

Here are 3 fonts you need to stop using professionally now if you want to stay cool:

#1 Papyrus

Make me happy – use anything else but Papyrus. Yes these are my personal opinions I am sharing here but please for the sake of humanity, Papyrus should be a banned font. There is only one exception to this rule of obstaining from using this typeface and that is if you are an 11 year old kid preparing a school project on Ancient Egypt.

Really I can’t see any other reasons why you should ever, ever consider using this font. Don’t go there because you think your café menu needs to look rustic or exotic. No you don’t want to use it for your headings on your resume so you look arty and word document prolific. It’s all wrong.

If you really need something that looks distinctive yet rustic perhaps try Aquiline Two or Orchidee.

#2 Curlz MT

Oh my lordy, wordy, yes indeedy this one is a doosy and it makes my eyes scream no!!

Seriously, unless you are making humpty dumpty biscuits for toddlers I can’t imagine any reason for you to switch to using Curlz MT as your brand font.

Curlz MT is just too well curly, it is overdone, childlike, squiggly do that says nothing about you other than you have bad taste and are over the top without any style or substance.

Make the font police happy and swap your curlz MT for another more appropriate typeface like Amadeus.

#3 Comic Sans

Can I hear an Amen to the end of this one? Comic Sans is so chatty and common, so overused. Granted it can be a clever addition to a slide presentation for kids because it is easy to read on screen and it’s commonly installed on pretty much every computer so you’re guaranteed that your documents will look the same when opened by someone else. However that’s about all this font has going for it.

But on your professional letters, documents or website – heck no!! It’s semi comic, cartoony style makes it just all wrong for professional documents. I’ve seen it on billboards, bakery menus, day care newsletters and water conservation posters. If you’re looking for something childlike and fun that’s not overused then try Good Dog out as a font.

Ok so that’s my mini rant - I’m not suggesting you shouldn’t be brave and be bold with your future font choices. I’m just saying have a little consideration for the reader and choose a font style that represents you, not just because it was the quirkiest you could find. Check out this video where I share my thoughts on all these fonts https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZR3TecWHIj4.