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Choosing Fonts for Your Manga or Webcomic (Part 1)
Tag: font used in manga April 25, 2021 April 25, 2021 1990's Fonts Block Fonts Bold Fonts Colorful Fonts Cool Fonts Custom Fonts Display Fonts Fun Fonts Graffiti Fonts Halloween Fonts Hand-lettered Fonts Lettering Fonts Premium Fonts Sans Serif Fonts Symbols Fonts Text Fonts Urban Fonts by hipfonts. Tag: font used in manga. April 25, 2021 April 25, 2021 1990's Fonts Block Fonts Bold Fonts Colorful Fonts Cool Fonts Custom Fonts Display Fonts Fun Fonts Graffiti Fonts Halloween Fonts Hand-lettered Fonts Lettering Fonts Premium Fonts Sans Serif Fonts Symbols Fonts Text Fonts Urban Fonts by hipfonts.
Fontsare one of those funny things. A lot of people never even noticethem- unless they're bad. They're one of those silent gluesholding a work of fiction together, noticeable only ever by theirfailings.
Theworld of fonts is really confusing, and it took me ages to get mybearings and figure out how I wanted to go forward with typesettingmy manga. So I wanted to give other artists a bit of a leg up bysharing some of what I've learnt. I'm going to focus primarily onfont choices for manga here, but this information should hopefully beapplicable to any type of comic!
Fontsin Manga
Startingwith manga! At some point, when deciding what type of font to use inEnglish translated manga, one type won out. I don't know why,because I think it's pretty ill-suited to most manga, but it'sbasically the same type of font you see in a lot of Western comicbooks and newspaper comic strips. It looks like this:
Ipersonally don't think these fonts are that suited to a lot of manga. Itworks great for shounen- you want reading to be as easy and quick aspossible so that you aren't distracted from fast-paced fightscenes. But it's not well-suited to shoujo, or to moreintrospective manga aimed at adult readers, either. It's become alazy choice for manga typsetting, the easy default regardless ofwhether it suits a series or not. They get the job done and they're wonderful fonts, don't get me wrong. But I don't think they add anything to the manga they're used in a lot of the time, and my personal opinion is that your font choices should do just that.
Backin the 90s Tokyopop did try a few different options. CardcaptorSakura and Magic Knight Rayearth both used Times New Roman (yes,seriously, they were that cheap) in its original run. Not the mostexciting choice, perhaps, but on the other hand it does lend a nice novel-like feel to the typesetting.
Theone where I really think they hit gold was Sailor Moon. (Yes, I know,what a shock, I love something about SM). The font they used for itprobably ALSO came for free on their programmes back then (it'scalled Formal 436 and can still be bought today), but its delicatecurves were particularly well-suited to a shoujo manga with fantasyand magical girl themes.
Theother main font they used was…wait, it has a ton of names. Cascade,Cassia, Formal 471… This leads into a different discussion aboutwhat a nightmare font licensing is, so let's leave that alone fornow! Anyway, it's an absolutely beautiful font with elements ofbrush painting, woodcut, and calligraphy. It's very, very uniquelysuited to a shoujo series.
Allin all, these font choices were great for a feminine series withfantasy and scifi elements. It seems like Tokyopop really pulled outall the stops for their flagship license, and it shows. These pagesare really dynamic and fun to read, and I think the fonts definitelycontribute to it.
In Japanese manga, switching between differentJapanese scripts can lend a lot of flavour to the text.
Atthe top is a hand-drawn word with a bubbly appearance. Then Mina says‘ii otoko' in katakana just to make it stand out from the rest ofthe text. The ‘V' in Sailor V is written in English, which standsout better than only spelling out the Japanese pronunciation of‘bui'. Then ‘The End' is written in English. So it all standsout!
Englishdoesn't have multiple alphabets (thank goodness!). So we caninstead create this effect by mixing up our font choices. More onthat later!
Letteringin Western Comics
Thisis not a subject which I'm particularly familiar with, I'll admitright away. But I still thought it was important to touch on it. Alot of Western comics actually don't use fonts- they're handlettered! In general a lot of Western comics published in the moretraditional model are collaborative efforts. You'll see separatecredits for writers, pencils, inks, colours,lettering… A different person handles each task.
I'monly familiar with a couple of hand-lettered comics, including Beeand Puppycat and Fionna and Cake, which have really adorablelettering which combines elements of a cute girly handwrittenappearance with a more script like appearance. And without thelimitations of a digital font, all sorts of creative things can bedone with them. The font can basically just go anywhere you want itto.
You can see that in some cases the speech bubble is curved, and the letters curve with it! Doing that sort of thing with a digital font is an absolute nightmare, and much easier with hand-lettering. And it looks so cute and dynamic on the page!
Andof course, the standard font used in English translated manga todayis based on the lettering styles used in both newspaper comic stripsand superhero comics.
Fonts Used In Manga Art
Letteringin Western Comics
Thisis not a subject which I'm particularly familiar with, I'll admitright away. But I still thought it was important to touch on it. Alot of Western comics actually don't use fonts- they're handlettered! In general a lot of Western comics published in the moretraditional model are collaborative efforts. You'll see separatecredits for writers, pencils, inks, colours,lettering… A different person handles each task.
I'monly familiar with a couple of hand-lettered comics, including Beeand Puppycat and Fionna and Cake, which have really adorablelettering which combines elements of a cute girly handwrittenappearance with a more script like appearance. And without thelimitations of a digital font, all sorts of creative things can bedone with them. The font can basically just go anywhere you want itto.
You can see that in some cases the speech bubble is curved, and the letters curve with it! Doing that sort of thing with a digital font is an absolute nightmare, and much easier with hand-lettering. And it looks so cute and dynamic on the page!
Andof course, the standard font used in English translated manga todayis based on the lettering styles used in both newspaper comic stripsand superhero comics.
Fonts Used In Manga Art
Itsprimary purpose is to be easy to read- very useful in particular fornewspaper strips which were printed in small sizes and on cheappaper.
Creatively,hand-lettering offers you a lot of freedom and the ability to makesome really artistic choices. But it's also not very practical forsingle artists. It's a totally different skill to drawing- I'msure I'm not the only artist out there who has ‘doctor'shandwriting' and couldn't letter a comic to save her life! Andnot only do I not have the resources to hire someone to letter mymanga for me- I don't want to. I like making every page 100% bymyself and having full creative control. So whether this approachworks for you may depend both on your skills (if you're alreadyinto, say, calligraphy, you might be able to letter your comicyourself!) and your preferences regarding collaborative work.
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Thisis some of the stuff to keep in mind stylistically, but before wecontinue with adding fonts to comics, there's a lot of fuss to gothrough when actually finding fonts which you can safely use! Fontlicensing is a total mess, to be frank. I'll be going over that inpart two, along with covering the main types of fonts out there andwhere to find fonts to use in your comics!
Pleasejoin me then! If you want to make sure you see when I post it, pleaseconsider following me!
Fonts Used In Manga Movies
Part Two (coming soon!)
