Let’s be honest — we’ve all committed at least one of these sins at some point. Maybe it was an innocent Canva design whipped up in a caffeine-fuelled frenzy… or a last-minute lead magnet that felt more Frankenstein than fabulous 😅
But here’s the tea, moonbeam: bad typography can totally curse your brand magic.
Typography is one of the most subtle-yet-powerful spells you cast with your visuals. It can either enchant your dream clients or make them run for the hills with burning eyes and a confused mind.
So, let’s banish the biggest typography no-no’s with my list of the 7 Deadly Sins of Bad Typography (and what to do instead!) 💀📜
Table of Contents
⚰️ 1. Font Gluttony: Using Too Many Fonts
When it comes to fonts, more isn’t always merrier. If your design is starting to look like a free-for-all font buffet, it’s time to pull back.
❌ Font Sin: Using five or more fonts in a single design creates visual overwhelm, inconsistency, and confusion. It makes your brand feel amateur rather than aligned.
✅ Typography Tip:
Stick to a core set of 3–4 fonts:
- A headline font (this is where you can show a little personality)
- A body font (clean, simple, and legible)
- An optional accent font (like a script or display font for special touches)
Once you’ve picked your magic trio, use them consistently across your branding. Think of them as your signature spell ingredients — repeat them in every potion (aka design) and your audience will start to recognise your vibe instantly.
🔪 2. Kerning Crimes: Bad Letter Spacing
Ahhh kerning — the unsung hero of polished design. It’s the spacing between letters, and when it’s off, it really shows.
❌ Font Sin: Letters that are either crammed together like a panicked hug or spaced so far apart they feel like strangers at a networking event.
✅ Typography Tip: Kerning is especially important in logos, headlines, or anything meant to grab attention. Poor spacing can turn a gorgeous font into a messy, unreadable disaster. Always zoom in and manually adjust kerning if something feels off. (Canva Pro lets you do this with the letter spacing tool — yay for design wizardry!)
✨ Bonus tip: Watch out for common offenders like capital letters or certain font combos that naturally have awkward spacing. Trust your eye and aim for balance.
🙈 3. Illegibility: If They Can’t Read It, They’ll Leave It
You could have the world’s most powerful message… but if your audience can’t read it, it may as well be invisible ink.
❌ Font Sin: Choosing style over substance. Tiny cursive on a busy background, low contrast colours, or novelty fonts that look more like symbols than words.
✅ Typography Tip: Readability is queen 👑
- Use high contrast (e.g. dark text on a light background or vice versa)
- Avoid overly decorative fonts for body copy — they’re best saved for logos or quotes
- Minimum font size for body text: 12–14pt for digital, 10pt minimum for print
✨ A quick test: if you have to squint, so will your readers. If it takes longer than a second to figure out what it says, pick another font!
📢 4. Capital Punishment: Overusing ALL CAPS
ALL CAPS CAN WORK WONDERS… but use them incorrectly and you’ll sound like you’re YELLING INTO THE VOID 😬
❌ Font Sin: Entire paragraphs, blocks of text, or multiple headings written in all caps, creating a wall of SHOUTY TEXT that’s hard on the eyes and intimidating to read.
✅ Typography Tip: Use all caps intentionally — for a bold heading, a call-to-action button, or a single word you want to emphasise. But for longer sentences or blocks of text, stick to sentence case or title case.
✨ Pro tip: All caps plus tight letter spacing is the ultimate readability killer. If you’re going full caps, give the letters some breathing room using tracking/letter spacing.
🪦 5. Font Crimes of Passion: Overused or Cringe Fonts
Some fonts should have stayed in the 2000s… yet they keep haunting our designs like bad exes 👻
❌ Font Sin: Falling for fonts like Comic Sans, Papyrus, Curlz MT or Lobster just because they look “fun.” Sadly, they can cheapen your brand faster than you can say “Wingdings.”
✅ Typography Tip: Choose fonts that reflect your brand personality. Are you modern and minimal? Elegant and high-end? Quirky and creative? Let your fonts tell that story — with clarity and consistency.
✨ Bonus tip: Stay away from default fonts that scream “Microsoft Word doc circa 2003.” Instead, explore fresh font combos on platforms like Google Fonts, Creative Market, or even Canva’s font library.
🔄 6. Alignment Anarchy: When Nothing Lines Up
This one might sound basic, but girl… it’s powerful. Alignment issues can instantly make a design look chaotic and unprofessional, even if everything else is beautiful.
❌ Font Sin: Random centring, awkward indentations, jagged margins, and misaligned text boxes that create visual tension instead of flow.
✅ Typography Tip: Pick a primary alignment and stick to it — left alignment is usually your safest bet (especially for body text, because it’s how we naturally read). Reserve centre alignment for short phrases, titles, or quotes. And right alignment? Use it sparingly and intentionally.
✨ Magic rule: Align your text with other elements (like images, shapes or buttons) to create a harmonious layout. It’s like feng shui for your designs.
🎭 7. Style Inconsistency: The Typography Identity Crisis
One font is bold. One is italic. One is ALL CAPS. Another is underlined. Your reader is confused, your brand’s lost its vibe, and your design looks like a mood board with commitment issues.
❌ Font Sin: Jumping between styles with no clear structure or purpose. It makes your design feel inconsistent, messy, and off-brand.
✅ Typography Tip: Create a clear font hierarchy:
- H1 – Main Heading (big, bold, branded)
- H2 – Subheading (smaller, supportive)
- Body Text (readable and calm)
- Accent or Quote Style (optional and consistent)
✨ Create a mini brand style guide, even if you’re DIYing in Canva! You can then save your font sizes and styles in Canva’s Brand Kit to stay consistent every time you design.
🌟 Final Words from Your Typography Fairy Godwitch…
Typography might feel like a tiny detail, but it’s actually a really important element to your brand.
It guides your reader’s eye. It influences how they feel. And it has the power to make your brand feel polished, professional, and oh-so-magnetic ✨
So, next time you’re creating a new graphic in Canva, keep this list close and steer clear of the sins — your dream clients (and their eyeballs) will thank you!
…
Thank you for reading.
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