if you've ever taken a class or read a
book on graphics design you'll know that
they try to cover all the different
elements that go into creating print
advertising they'll talk about color the
use of images the layout of the objects
on the paper how to group them to be
most effective to convey the message you
want and then finally they'll talk about
what font or typeface style to use for
the written language that's going to be
on the advertisement itself so in your
quest to have the perfect actor resume
for your auditions hopefully you've seen
my other videos on the Gutenberg diagram
and on anchoring and so on and your
reworking your resume well picking the
right font is also just as important as
knowing where the layout of the
information goes on your resume so today
I want to cover a few things I want to
talk about the three different families
or groups that fonts are classified in
then I'm going to show you some examples
of using each of those families of fonts
on a resume so you can see how effective
it is or not in conveying information
and then I want to wrap up with a short
talk about the use of different sizes of
fonts on your resume itself okay so
let's get started so for our purposes
we're just going to look at three
families of thoughts you'll see why once
I go through them while we're only
looking at these three for our samples
the first one is script font and it's
designed to mimic handwriting because
that's why you've got all these loops
and curlicues and so on
there you have samples like script Black
Adder Edwardian Harlow solid now to show
you why this in my opinion is the worst
font to pick for your resume I've
created a an actor resume using only the
script font as you can see even though
it sort of looks cool close up if you're
looking at it it's it's really difficult
to read ultimately
okay there's a term in graphics design
called noise and what it refers to is
when the information that's on the page
is so hard to take in they say that the
the the layout of the design isn't too
noisy and this is really noisy it's so
hard to take in the individual words
that you lose the message you're trying
to get across with all the information
so this is one to stay away from any
kind of script font stay far away from
it the next font is called a serif font
and serif refers to this little tiny
hanging down thing that comes off a tee
or that comes off the side here at the a
or off the top of the our right those
are called serifs Times New Roman is
probably one of the most widely used
fonts in the world for newspapers for
magazines and books it was created
around 1934 The Times of London
the newspaper they had been using an
older version of this which they called
times old Roman but then they updated it
and this was the font that they came up
with and these are some derivatives of
that there's Georgia imprint shadow
stencil and in all the cases they have
the reason why you know it's a serif
font is it's got little stuff pointing
off the edges of the letters okay so
this is what my actor resume would look
like given that and you know Times New
Roman is perfectly serviceable it's also
you know the default setting for a
Microsoft Word doc so this is why most
actors resumes look like this but
there's a couple of drawbacks the first
one is that very fact most actors
resumes look like this because most
actors don't take the time to think
about what font to use their fonts all
look the same
there are times new roman' I think it's
important you know if you're going to
spend the time to develop your resume
postcards website by having a
distinctive font that's yours
it makes a visual theme across all the
different advertising pieces the other
really big problem with Times New Roman
with us with a serif font is that actors
when they start over filling their
resume and making things really small
the typeface really starts to break down
and become too noisy now right now the
size of this typeface here this font is
is 12 and it's it's it's pretty easy to
read but when you start to reduce it to
say 10 or even 8 it's sort of like
reading the fine print in a legal
document and it's much too hard and once
again it gets noisy so our last font is
called Sam serif Sam meaning without
you'll see there are no hanging down
things off the tee or the a of the R or
anywhere sans serif fonts became really
popular after world war ii they the one
that really started it off was one made
in switzerland called Helvetica if
you've ever looked at the sign for the
New York City subway system all the
information that's ovett akka that's the
font and these are derivatives of that
Arial Tahoma Verdana euro style and once
again you can distinguish them because
they don't have any kind of serifs
hanging off the letters they're nice and
blocky
which makes them really easy to read now
here's that resume again in a font
called Tahoma as you can see it's a very
easy font to read it's got a nice solid
look to it and there's a couple of
things I want to talk about not only
with this this particular font style but
with now about how to use font sizes on
the resume one of the best pieces of
advice I ever got about putting my
resume together is that you should think
of your resume as the front page of a
newspaper for a couple of reasons
this is that think of this up here this
area up here is sort of the mass
sad that's the top of the newspaper you
know and I always they say what's the
name of the newspaper the name of this
newspaper is Shawn Pratt and these would
be sort of like you know contact
information for the paper or the stock
quotes and so on and then this is the
body of you know the the front page of
the newspaper and these would be stories
you might say so when you're thinking
about how big to make your fonts if you
start thinking in terms of of a
newspaper front page it makes sense that
your name should be the largest thing on
the the resume followed by your contact
information and your stats and then
going down slightly smaller the
categories like stage and there's just a
little bit of film and education and
training and then the smallest font size
would be for the actual information
itself so these are at 12 so I'm sort of
guessing that this is probably 14 this
information here is probably 16 and this
is in the 20s like 28 size font but if
you think of once again if you think of
the resume as the front page of a
newspaper it'll help you decide how you
how big you want the fonts to go one
last thing about the newspaper analogy
when you get a newspaper you never get
it open-faced like this it's always
folded in half and in the newspaper
industry they call that if you were to
drop draw a line across here that's the
full of line and they say that
everything above the fold or below the
fold so the most important story of the
day goes above the fold it's the
headline the thing you want to read
first so this being my theater resume I
want my theater credits to be above the
fold so the when I walk in to audition
at that theater they'll see my theater
credits first and at the bottom I've
included a couple of film credits but
not many so once again use the newspaper
analogy when laying this out so there
you have it San serif fonts are by far
the best choice when you're picking
typefaces
to go in your resume they're cleaner
they're clearer
I just like the look and feel of them a
lot they're to me it's an obvious choice
also something to keep in mind once you
find a font that you really like you
should use that font on all your
materials that come out of your office
whether it's your the letterhead you
have your thank-you cards if you have a
website if you can get that font for the
for the type face for the website great
it's a small detail but if you take that
kind of time and care to have all the
stuff match visually it sends a good
message to the viewer it's a real subtle
thing but it's worth doing also please
remember about the newspaper idea that
if you think of your new resume as the
front page of a newspaper that'll help
you in choosing the right size font to
use for pieces of information on the
page itself and finally before I go I
just wanted to mention if you haven't
already I would really like it if you
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well good luck at your next audition