Data Authors: Skilled Designers of Data Presentations - Data Fluency: Empowering Your Organization with Effective Data Communication - page 110

Figure 5-21 describes an approach for deciding how to display each of these
text types. The highlighted areas indicate where you need to make decisions.

Purpose Size Font Color Style

Body Clean, readable text.

50-80% of your text
will look like this.

10-16 pts sans-serif: Helvetica,

Arial, Tahoma,
Verdana
serif: Georgia, Times

Neutral Normal

No bold or italic
1.2 line spacing

Header

Separate and name
major sections of
your writing.

150-200%
of body

Same as body or flip
serif/sans-serif

Neutral Normal, bold, or

italic
Whitespace above

Notes Additional things a

reader should be
aware of, data sources,
etc. Should “fade into
the background.”

85% of
body

Same as body De-emphasize,

lower contrast

Normal
No bold or italic

Emphasis Draw the eye to key

points you need to
make.

Same as
body

Same as body High impact

color

Bold or italic

choose one or both

your decisions

Figu r e 5-21: Our Simple Font Framework helps you use typography effectively with a few simple decisions.

You need to make only three basic decisions:

1. Choose size and font of the body text.
2. Decide if the header is going to flip to serif or sans-serif and whether it is
going to have any style.
3. Decide what to do about emphasis, such as color or bold or italic.

A few things don't fit neatly into one of the four text categories listed, such
as table headers and graph titles. You probably tend to use a combination of
styles to handle these exceptions and will also want to emphasize text that is
particularly important to your message.

Stick to this framework and your data product will have a more consistent,
clean appearance.