if you’re creating something inform, persuade, or impress, legibility matters. Subtle design tweaks—like line spacing, font choice, and colour contrast—can dramatically improve memorability and response rates.

Whether you’re building a pitch deck for investors, a flyer for your next event, or a website for your business, this guide will help you avoid common readability mistakes and make sure your message gets through—clearly, quickly, and confidently.

Get rid of…

All the things everyone hates about AI…

• endless, complex sentences
• unusual words
• terminology (other than keywords)
• a writing style that bores people
• meaningless bullets stating obvious facts
• statistical terms, figures or graphs that are easy to misinterpret
• ambiguous promises
• unattributed reviews or corporate statements

Start with the Right Font

• Serif fonts (like Times New Roman or Georgia) have small “tails” on the letters. They’re great for printed reports, books, and long documents—especially when readers are settling in for a read.
• Sans-serif fonts (like Arial or Tahoma) don’t have those extra lines. They’re best for screens—sharper, cleaner, and easier to read online or in a slideshow.
• Slab fonts are a hybrid. They have serifs, but they’re blocky and bold—making them ideal for strong headlines, especially on digital platforms.

PRO TIP:

• Use serif for long print and fiction books.
• Use sans-serif for screens and non-fiction.
• Use slab for punchy headers.

Improving layout readability

Whatever colours, fonts, text sizes, banners, borders and justification you choose, keep it the same throughout the pitch deck, publication or website. Use templates to ensure consistency – A well designed PowerPoint template allows you to add and change slides without losing cohesion.

One strong image

People look at the image first—sometimes only at the image. So don’t distract them with clutter or stock fluff. Pick one image that supports your message and makes people want to read more. Yes, a world map is cool, but unless it says something about your company it’s a waste of that all-too-short reader attention span.

Smart captions

People read captions (just not if they’re in tiny grey text so don’t do that). Say something useful, not obvious. Instead of “Team Photo,” try “We’ve launched 27 projects with this core team since 2021.”

Guide the eye

• Use clear subheadings and bold text to help readers skim.
• Pull out a quote or key message in a box or different style.
• Arrange the content top-left to bottom-right. That’s how most people scan a page—give their eyes a path to follow.

Using colour

• Don’t go wild. Two or three main colours is usually enough. Don’t use colour for its own sake with bullets, rules, bars etc. It is not there to decorate the page – it is there to sharpen the message.
• Use colour to link separate elements and create a cohesive design.
• White space boosts colour. Any strong colour should be surrounded by plenty of white. The larger the tinted background area, the lighter the tint should be and the bigger/bolder the type on top of it.
• High contrast = better readability. Charcoal on white works better than pure black. Avoid “vibrating” combos like red + green or orange + royal blue.
• Avoid mixing pastels (or muted colours) with bright primaries. Even if your personal taste runs to the exotic, remember your readers or viewers may be more traditional.