-: Welcome to the "Which Fonts Should You Use 2 2
For Your YouTube Videos" lecture. 3 3
In this lecture, we will learn what the best fonts are 4 4
for the most successful YouTube videos. 5 5
And there's a fascinating science behind the topic, 6 6
and it's often overlooked by YouTubers. 7 7
Why are we dedicating a lecture to the topic of fonts? 8 8
Because if your font is not easy to read 9 9
on mobile phones, then it doesn't matter 10 10
how good your title is and it doesn't matter 11 11
how good your thumbnail is, and of course 12 12
the content of the video won't be viewed 13 13
if people can't clearly read your font. 14 14
So let's talk about our 12 font rules. 15 15
-: Rule number one: always test your font sizes 16 16
by seeing if you can read them on a mobile phone. 17 17
And that's in portrait mode, okay? 18 18
If we look here at my YouTube analytics 19 19
and see what devices my viewers use, 20 20
you can see here that over 80% watch 21 21
my YouTube videos on a mobile device. 22 22
So always use fonts that are easy to read 23 23
in portrait mode on a smartphone. 24 24
-: Use Sans Serif or Sans Serif fonts 25 25
instead of Serif fonts. 26 26
Now, a Serif font is a font with these squiggly lines 27 27
on the sides of them like this. 28 28
And the word "sans," or "soh," 29 29
in French, means "without," and looks like this, 30 30
without these squiggly lines. 31 31
Now, watch what happens when we shrink 32 32
the Sans Serif and the Serif fonts 33 33
to the same size on a mobile phone. 34 34
You see how it's harder to read the Serif font? 35 35
And so, whenever you see a font, 36 36
and right beside it, it says Sans Serif or Sans Serif, 37 37
my French is awful, I'm sorry, 38 38
then I want you to use the one that is Sans Serif, 39 39
and I recommend not using Serif fonts. 40 40
And just play around with the Sans Serif fonts 41 41
that you see in your thumbnail image software, 42 42
meaning Photoshop or whatever software 43 43
or web-based application you're using 44 44
to make your YouTube thumbnail images. 45 45
-: Rule number three: consider using capital letters 46 46
as they are easier to read and they don't take up 47 47
much more real estate on your image. 48 48
For example, if we're looking at this thumbnail 49 49
with lowercase letters on a smartphone, 50 50
it's harder to read than this thumbnail 51 51
on the same phone. 52 52
All caps equals easier to read. 53 53
Only use lowercase if you have a very small 54 54
amount of text in your image, 55 55
or if it's just like one word or something like that. 56 56
But make sure the size is large enough 57 57
that it can be read. 58 58
Rule number four: use only one or two 59 59
types of font on your thumbnails. 60 60
Any more than that can be distracting. 61 61
An exception might be your logo in the corner of your image, 62 62
but otherwise, just stick to one or two fonts. 63 63
But if you're really tempted to use 64 64
more than two fonts, then instead of using 65 65
that third font style, play around with 66 66
making your existing fonts on your image in bold. 67 67
-: Be very careful with italicized words. 68 68
Make sure your viewers can read the italics font, 69 69
because some italicized versions of fonts are harder 70 70
to read than the non-italicized versions of your fonts. 71 71
And sometimes the italicized font is a bit thinner as well. 72 72
Next up we have, "Helvetica, hell yeah." 73 73
Now Steve Jobs eventually dropped out of Reed College, 74 74
but he was so passionate about fonts 75 75
that in 1972, he sat in on classes about calligraphy. 76 76
In fact, Apple was the number one seller 77 77
of laser printers in the world in the 1980s. 78 78
It's true because of Steve Jobs' passion 79 79
for beautifully designed fonts. 80 80
And Helvetica was Steve Jobs' favorite font, 81 81
and it's my personal favorite, too, especially in all caps. 82 82
And when I got my first Mac in the 1980s, 83 83
I was blown away by the number of fonts 84 84
that it shipped with. 85 85
You know, Apple pioneered this whole process, 86 86
and before the Mac, most word processors had 87 87
only one font, in white and on a blue screen. 88 88
You remember those days? 89 89
Like this from Word Perfect. 90 90
I'm really dating myself here, 91 91
but why am I mentioning all this stuff? 92 92
Because when you create a YouTube thumbnail image, 93 93
it can be fun if you think of it as a work of art. 94 94
You know, each thumbnail image is a blank palette, 95 95
and a beautifully selected font 96 96
can turn a boring thumbnail into a work of art. 97 97
And we really have to think differently about 98 98
the whole process, and have fun with it too, of course. 99 99
Now here is what Steve Jobs had to say about fonts. 100 100
"If I had never dropped in on that single course in college, 101 101
the Mac would never have had multiple typefaces 102 102
or proportionally spaced fonts. 103 103
And since Windows just copied the Mac," 104 104
this is Steve Jobs' quote, right, 105 105
"Since Windows just copied the Mac, 106 106
it's likely that no personal computer would have them." 107 107
-: Rule number seven: less is always more. 108 108
Similar to how we should only use three bullet points 109 109
on a slide in a presentation, 110 110
try not to use more than three to four 111 111
lines of text in an image. 112 112
If you use multiple rows of text, 113 113
make sure they are spaced out, okay? 114 114
Remember that the text on your thumbnail 115 115
can be different from the actual title 116 116
of your YouTube video, too. 117 117
The thumbnail should attract attention, 118 118
and the title on the YouTube image 119 119
should include key words that users might search for. 120 120
If the software you're using to make the distance 121 121
between the lines of text isn't accurate enough for you, 122 122
then simply insert a row and make that row have 123 123
a smaller font size, and of course, 124 124
we never want to have any letters touching each other 125 125
as well, as it creates a cluttered and hard-to-read effect. 126 126
-: If a font on one line is tough to read, 127 127
then use tracking to add more spaces between the letter 128 128
and play around with increasing the distance 129 129
between letters if the text is tough to read. 130 130
And if you can't find the tracking, 131 131
or the kerning function as they call it, 132 132
in whatever software product you're using 133 133
to make your YouTube thumbnails, 134 134
then you can add spaces between the letters 135 135
and then highlight that space in between the letter 136 136
and make the font size of that space a little bit smaller. 137 137
-: Rule number nine: use 3D and depth in text 138 138
to attract attention to the font on your thumbnail. 139 139
A little depth added can make it easier to read 140 140
using shadows and border colors. 141 141
-: Let's talk about where to purchase fonts from 142 142
and being careful with copyrighted fonts. 143 143
Now, if you use fonts that don't ship 144 144
with your graphic software product, 145 145
then you have to purchase them, as they are copyrighted. 146 146
And a great website to purchase the fonts from is fonts.com. 147 147
I recommend going to fonts.com and viewing 148 148
what the top 100 selling fonts are at that website, 149 149
because these are the ones that the top graphic designers 150 150
in the world purchase and use. 151 151
And we can piggyback on their expertise. 152 152
And once you see a font that you love 153 153
that is in the top 100, then see if you already have 154 154
that one installed on your computer 155 155
within the software package you use, 156 156
and if not, consider purchasing that font, 157 157
as it will help you in the long run 158 158
especially if you plan on making YouTube videos for profit. 159 159
Now my favorite fonts are in the top 20 here, 160 160
meaning Helvetica, Avenir, Futura, and Ariel. 161 161
And notice that most of the top-selling fonts 162 162
are not Serif, meaning they are Sans Serif, 163 163
which again means without the squiggly lines 164 164
on the sides of the letters. 165 165
-: Rule number eleven: here's a tip. 166 166
Use fonts from famous logos. 167 167
Look at the top brands in the world 168 168
and see what fonts they use. 169 169
If you like the font you see, 170 170
then use a web lookup tool to tell you what the font is. 171 171
For example, let's go to fontsquirrel.com, 172 172
and let's navigate to their font identifier page. 173 173
And let's take an image of the word "Toyota" 174 174
from a Toyota logo, and upload it 175 175
to the Font Squirrel website. 176 176
We can see here what font Toyota is, 177 177
or we can see similar fonts to Toyota 178 178
in case we want to purchase or use a similar font. 179 179
These big companies spend millions of dollars 180 180
with focus groups testing what fonts work best, 181 181
but we can buy this font for a lot less 182 182
on Font Squirrel's website. 183 183
This website won't always find a perfect font match, 184 184
but it'll find a close enough match, and just for fun, 185 185
okay, let's upload the text from Adidas logo 186 186
to see if we can find a close enough match. 187 187
Here, we can see that the closest match, 188 188
which isn't perfect, is a font called 189 189
Camerick 105 Cyrillic Bold. 190 190
Check to see if you already have that font 191 191
in your graphic software product, 192 192
and if not, you can buy it here for $26. 193 193
Let's do one more, just for fun. 194 194
Let's take the Amazon logo and see if we can't find a match. 195 195
Here we see we have a few options. 196 196
The first one is called Telephoto Regular, 197 197
and the cost is $22 for this font. 198 198
And it's not a perfect match as there's a kink here 199 199
in the Z in Amazon's logo, but it's pretty close. 200 200
By the way, guess what this arrow means here? 201 201
It means "A" to "Z." 202 202
Isn't that clever? 203 203
Arrows work really well on logos and on YouTube 204 204
thumbnail images, which we will talk about 205 205
in a lot more detail later in the course. 206 206
-: Be clever, and play around and have fun 207 207
with hidden meanings in the font, especially with arrows, 208 208
which is used by Federal Express's logo, 209 209
and influenced me when I chose my brand name and my logo. 210 210
And you can highlight the arrow 211 211
if you want to as well, like FedEx does. 212 212
And FedEx use lowercases with their logo, 213 213
and it works for them only because 214 214
they have five characters in the brand name. 215 215
So the next time you see a FedEx package 216 216
or a FedEx truck, look for the arrow in the image. 217 217
And quick side note, notice how FedEx loves to use 218 218
bright colors like orange and green in their logos. 219 219
Fonts are a lot of fun. 220 220
It's so much fun looking for hidden meanings in logos, 221 221
and if you create text with hidden meanings, 222 222
make sure it's easy to read. 223 223
For example, this one here is Le Tour De France, 224 224
which might be tough to read, to be honest. 225 225
But if you look closely, you can find 226 226
this dude here riding a bike. 227 227
And just for fun, let's see if you can find 228 228
the hidden clever meanings in these five logos here. 229 229
And I'm only showing this to you 230 230
to inspire you to think differently when using fonts. 231 231
Okay, what do you notice about this logo here 232 232
for the ice cream company Baskin Robbins? 233 233
Pause me if you want to think about the answer first. 234 234
In the "BR" in this logo here, 235 235
you will see the number 31, for 31 flavors. 236 236
How about this one here for Tostitos? 237 237
What do you see? 238 238
You see two people sharing a chip 239 239
and dip under the chip here. 240 240
How about this one, what do you see? 241 241
The headphones are for Beats, of course. 242 242
These are headphones, the B. 243 243
Two more. 244 244
What do you see in this one? 245 245
The P and the S in PlayStation, of course. 246 246
Last one. 247 247
What do you see here? 248 248
I didn't get this one right away, but you see a subway map, 249 249
meaning the white and yellow lines with arrows, 250 250
which is symbolic and is part of their branding process. 251 251
You can eat a sub with any type of toppings you want to. 252 252
That's what they say. 253 253
And you can skip the rest of this lecture, 254 254
but I'm having so much fun with this right now 255 255
that I want to talk about five more 256 256
cool logos with hidden meanings. 257 257
This one here's for Pinterest. 258 258
What do you see in the letter P? 259 259
It's a pin. 260 260
Next up, how bout this one? 261 261
This one is hard, but you can see "mom" 262 262
is spelled on Wendy's collar. 263 263
And how bout this one here? 264 264
What do you see here? 265 265
You can see the razor that cuts the letters "G" and "I." 266 266
Two more. 267 267
This one blew my mind, I love this one. 268 268
This is for the London Symphony Orchestra, 269 269
and what do you see here? 270 270
Well, we have the letters L, S, and O, 271 271
and we also have a conductor. 272 272
Last one, I'm a big baseball fan. 273 273
So this is the Milwaukee Brewers baseball team, 274 274
and we see here we've got the letter M 275 275
and the letter B in their logo, 276 276
and we also have a baseball glove. 277 277
-: How fun was that, eh? 278 278
Canadian. 279 279
Please find attached a PDF with all the tips mentioned 280 280
in this lecture on fonts. 281 281
Thanks.