Exploring & Choosing Typography

Now that I have paper wireframes done, and a basis for my app, it’s time to start thinking about the visual grammar that’ll go into it. The right typography can speak for itself when used correctly. Since I want this game to be fun, and feel like a space adventure, I want the title to have a fun sci-fi typeface, and the same for the rest of the text and buttons.

I think I will go for a few different typefaces, that all compliment eachother well.

I went onto DaFont on a hunt for sci-fi / space typefaces to use, and I found these:

The ones that immediately stood out to me were the top three, as well as JLS SpaceGothic.

I think JLS SpaceGothic could be a good typeface to use for my paragraph text or buttons, but I also found Space Mono on Figma and I think that looks great for the same thing. It is still fun and sci-fi, but is also a bit more readable.

Space Mono is the first typeface in that png, and JLS SpaceGothicR is the second.

I do think I will use both of these fonts going forward.

As for the game title, I think I will choose Space Ranger, because once I looked through the typeface, I found a few different versions of the font that I thought could look really great.

I really like how Space Ranger Laser italic looks, however, I was concerned about the readability of this font. To check this, I sent it, along with Space Ranger Italic, to people who are visually impaired, as well as people who have trouble with reading due to dyslexia. I also showed it to a few of the children I had sent the questionnaire to.

The visually impaired people all said that they could still read the text since it was bold and still had clear shapes, and the dyslexic person I spoke to said that she could still read it just fine.

The children had different opinions on the two italic fonts. One said that the laser one “looked like Star Wars”, which made me chuckle, but also gave me confidence that the font does exactly what I want it to do. Another child said that they were both just as easy to read and “look kinda the same” – so, again, it wasn’t too much help, but at least I know that both are just as good accessibility and readability-wise.

I am going to ask Kyle for his opinion on these typefaces in my feedback session.

Update:

Kyle thinks that I should definitely go with Space Ranger Laser Italic, he is of the same opinion as me in that it is more visually appealing and fun to look at.