What if you took two minutes…
To learn a simple design skill, technique and/or hack?

And what if those two minutes gave you one piece of the design puzzle that will help you achieve a more polished look?

You’d want in, right?

Read on for the first in my series of two minute design hacks - one I use in my own work all the time - using dingbats.

DINGBATS

First of all, what is a dingbat? Wikipedia gives the definition that:

“A dingbat font is a font that has symbols and shapes in the positions designated for alphabetical or numeric characters”

In other words, when you try to type a sentence using a dingbat font all you get are random pictures. In the picture below, it’s clear what the first line says. The bottom two lines use the same letters, but they’re using the Merry Christmas Go dingbat font.

While it’s true you can accomplish what a dingbat does with icons or graphics, dingbats are often easier and can add variety and depth to what you’re working on.

Dingbats are flexible

Last year I was working on a project for a client that needed a star icon. I went to all of my usual sources, and nothing quite gelled for me. There were plenty of things that could work, but nothing was exactly what I was hoping for.

It’s like when you’re searching for the perfect pair of shoes. There are usually plenty of almost-good-enough options, but you know if you keep searching you’ll find the perfect pair. And it’s always worth it to find that perfect pair.

Thankfully I remembered the dingbat option, so I headed to my favorite site for dingbats, and within a minute I’d found a star font that had exactly what I was looking for. I quickly downloaded the font, and I was off and running.

The best part? Not only did I get the one style of star I was looking for to use in that project, I now have 25 other stars that I can use in other projects - like Advent and Epiphany printouts.

Dingbats are easy

We don’t have time for things that aren’t easy - amiright? Once the dingbat font is installed, you don’t have to switch between text and images to use them. It takes far less time to switch from one font to another than it does to add a graphic, line it up, and keep re-aligning it when the text shifts.

Dingbats make great dividers, frames, bullets, and graphics on your page.

My favorite dingbat hack

Wingdings letter q.

This hack is what got my love of dingbats going after I inherited a form from the previous communications director at the church where I formerly worked. When I investigated the neat column of check boxes on the form, I discovered they were all dingbats! Knowing that, I have been able to create beautiful, easy to follow forms like the one pictured here.

Dingbats as bullets

Do you ever get a little bored with the standard bullet used in bulleted lists, or is that just me? You don’t even have to use a dingbat here to add variety (I tend toward the double arrow myself).

Say you’re handing out a Christmas list of items to collect. Instead of the regular bullet, it could be a star, present, tree, bow, ornament, snowflake… you get the picture.

Let me know in the comments below if you want a tutorial video on how to change out your standard bullets with something fun.

Managing your dingbats

I learned the hard way that dingbat fonts can get lost in my font collection. And if I do find the font I’m looking for, it can take forever to test every. single. letter. to see if there’s a dingbat that will fit my needs.

My recommendation is to start a spreadsheet or doc to track your dingbats. I even like to separate them by usage (the image above is a snapshot of my Christmas dingbats). That way, not only is it easy to see what I’ve got, but copy and paste is a breeze.

Where to get them

My go-to site to start looking at dingbats is dafont.com. They have a section for dingbats that you can search by season or use. All the fonts there are free for personal use, so unless you are selling your design work, it’s okay to use the free versions.

Have you used dingbats in the past? How have you used them? Or do you plan to start using them for the first time?