Brian's Tip for Defining Your Font Style

Classic, vintage, playful or cute? What does your font collection say about you? This month, let Brian help you pin-point your personal font style. Plus, he identifies a few SNF fonts that fit each specific style.
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Font Tip: Show Your Style
by Brian Tippetts


As the famous French fashion designer Yves Saint-Laurent once stated, “Fashions fade, but style is eternal.”

Style is one of those hard to explain, but easy to point out concepts. In scrapbooking, Cathy Zielske is a perfect example of the clean and simple style. Clean lines, solid colors, journaling either justified or closely justified and symmetrical designs based on simple grids. Being a designer, Cathy has stayed true to many of the “classic” fonts for her layouts. Fonts like Helvetica, Garamond, Times New Roman are clean and traditional font styles that have been around for ages. She has also included some scripts that continue the clean and simple feel that completes her designs.

Just as Cathy has a recognizable style, we can all pull together those elements that communicate who we are and define our own style.

A good exercise to try is by looking through your favorite magazine and marking the pages that have colors, fonts, patterns and grids that you identify with. Do you tend to prefer bright colors or muted ones. Solids or patterns, symmetrical or asymmetrical balance or grids and most importantly, classic style fonts or playful and cute style fonts. This will help in picking your next scrapbook paper, accents or embellishments and the font style to use for your next headline or journaling.

Now that you have narrowed down what your favorite style is, let me offer you four basic font style categories and examples of fonts from the ScrapNfonts collection that can help you out.

Classic style

Clean and simple, easy to read, perfect for large journaling blocks, can be used large or small, easy to mix with other fonts, doesn’t need to be the center of attention.

Classic style fonts: SNF Schoolyard, SNF Infinity Bold, SNF Metro, SNF Universal

Vintage or shabby chic style

Ornate and weathered, popular type styles of the early 1900s, decorative and more the center of attention on a page.

Vintage style fonts: LD Bostonian, SNF Chipboard, TXT Antique Poster, LD Old Glory


Playful or display style

Fun, playful fonts that are the center of attention, font designs that match different themes, perfect for titles but can be overused, should limit the number of playful fonts on layouts so that it doesn’t look like a ransom note. Can also include how the font is displayed, like vertical text, text on a curve, or any other playful way to display the font.

Playful style fonts: SNF Caution, LD This and That, SNF Infinity Bold, SNF Dauber

Cute style

Handwritten fonts with a “personalized” feel, perfect for large areas of journaling including notes or stories, easy to mix with classic style fonts, can also be used as background design, not the center of attention.

Cute style fonts: LD Abe Lincoln, SNF Goody, SNF Sophia, SNF Lollihop

Regardless of your personal style, there are many fonts to match your every desire and style. I definitely have my favorites when it comes to fonts, but I love trying out new font styles to see what I can come up with.

As a bonus and to celebrate Easter, I have created four Easter cards for you to download and print or use for something fun. I mixed two font styles by using a vintage (SNF Chipboard) and a cute (SNF Lollihop) style of font. The eggs come from EggBat DoodleBats set.

Have fun and enjoy your style!
Brian