Readability lessons from a B&B that got it all wrong

On a family vacation some time back we arranged to stay at a Bed & Breakfast. We put down a deposit prior to leaving, then received a brochure in the mail and a statement of what we paid and what we would owe when we arrived.

For the record, I have great eye sight. No glasses necessary. But this brochure was painful to read, even with great eyes.

The main copy in the brochure and “room description” insert card appeared to be Monotype Corsiva. It’s a common font and one you probably have on your computer. Used sparingly in specific situations, this can work. But for lots of body copy? Ouch!

Go ahead and try it… take a Word document that’s at least one full page, select all the text, and then convert the font 11-point Monotype Corsiva. (Or can click this link – Readability lessons from a B&B that got it all wrong – to read this article in Monotype Corsiva.)

As you read the text, think of the potential customers for a B&B…it’s going to be all over the map. You’ve got young couples, older couples… just about the entire age range who may want to read the brochure, not to mention people from other countries where English is not the primary language.

To be honest, I never even read the whole brochure. It wasn’t worth my time.

But it got worse.

The insert card which listed the rooms and the rates also used Monotype Corsiva for the body copy, but now the font size was smaller because they were trying to pack in a lot of information. For the heading for each room, the room name was listed using a font that I had never seen and couldn’t even come close to identifying.

I’m not making this up… it looked like a font used in one of the Star Trek movies from years ago. Maybe it’s Klingon.

Compounding an already bad situation was that fact that they came up with clever names for their rooms. So between words that were partially made-up and a font that seemed from another galaxy, it was extremely difficult to read the room names.

Why would anyone do this? My guess is that someone thought the “fancy” fonts added a touch of class and elegance to the brochure and would make their B&B appear the same. Yes, it’s just my opinion, but that someone was wrong. This is a common case where the design is getting in the way of the message in the copy.

I had to laugh at the statement they included, showing what I owed. Did it use fancy fonts? No way! You don’t want people to be confused over what they still owe, right? So my statement was a mixture of a more traditional Times New Roman and Arial. While I had no idea what the name of our room was based on the insert card, I sure as heck knew how much I still owed for that room because that font was perfectly clear.

I highly doubt you’ve ever done a promotion in a challenging font like this. But the situation isn’t always as easy to diagnose as my example.

Sometimes companies go a little nuts using a mish-mash of fonts, or they don’t properly understand the best use for certain fonts. The result is that some readers will give up long before they reach the call for action. But my guess is that you’re not willing to lose even one sale if it can easily be avoided, right?

If you’re using a layout professional, you can probably breathe easy… that person will take care of things for you, using appropriate fonts.

If you’re doing things yourself and you’re not sure which fonts to use, at least invest in a consulting session with a professional who can give you some advice based on your specific needs and audience. That will be far cheaper than sending out a piece that a certain percentage of readers aren’t going to waste their time with because it looks like a visual chore.

Back to our B&B example: To be fair in this case, the bad font choices for the B&B brochure may not be hurting their business much. But I’d be willing to bet it’s not helping them either.

For most direct marketers that I’m aware of, something that’s “not helping” is going to be categorized as “hurting.” And there’s simply too much money invested in mailing campaigns to take chances.