As appeared in Inside Indiana Business, September 3, 2026.
Every generation eventually reaches a moment when the world quietly shifts beneath their feet. Often, that moment arrives in a dimly lit restaurant. They open the menu, glance down at the text, and realize something unsettling: they can’t decide what to order, because they have no idea what the words say.
It’s a universal experience, and one that millions of Baby Boomers and Gen Xers have already encountered. You’ll find reading glasses on their nightstands, their end tables, and their toilet tanks. Businesses are adapting to an aging population in all sorts of ways. Car seats offer better lumbar support. Household tools come with softer, easier-to-grip handles. Technology companies design products with larger buttons and clearer displays. The marketplace understands something important: people are living longer, working longer, and spending longer.
Yet there’s one area of business communication that often seems to forget this reality: graphic design.
Modern design has become visually striking in ways that would have been difficult to imagine a few decades ago. Today’s designers have powerful digital tools and a well-honed sense of creativity and beauty. The results are often sleek, elegant, visually exciting – and frequently difficult to read.
It’s not intentional. In most cases, it’s simply a matter of perspective. Many designers are in their twenties and thirties. That means their eyesight is still doing exactly what it’s supposed to do. Small type looks perfectly normal. Subtle color contrasts appear clear and crisp. A stylish typeface with delicate strokes feels elegant and refined. For someone 25 years old, those choices may work beautifully. For someone 25 years older, they can be frustrating.
If your organization markets to an audience that includes older professionals, business owners, or retirees, readability should be a top consideration. A brochure or website that looks stunning but requires a magnifying glass to navigate isn’t helping your message. In fact, it may quietly push potential customers away.
The good news is that designing for readability doesn’t require sacrificing creativity. It simply requires remembering that your audience may see things a little differently than your design team does. Literally.
Typefaces are a good place to start. Familiar, well-balanced fonts tend to be easier on aging eyes than highly stylized alternatives. Classic serif typefaces and straightforward sans-serif designs have remained popular for decades for a reason: they’re comfortable to read.
Type size matters as well. Designers sometimes reduce text size in order to fit more information into a limited space or to achieve a particular visual effect. But when text dips too far below the comfortable reading range, many readers simply give up.
Spacing can make an enormous difference, too. Generous line spacing and thoughtful layout help guide readers through the material without visual fatigue.
Contrast is another critical factor. Designers often experiment with subtle color combinations that look sophisticated on a monitor but become difficult to distinguish in real-world conditions — especially in low-light environments like fancy restaurants. Light gray text on a pale background may feel modern and understated, but it can also become nearly invisible to older eyes. If it seems like I’m just being picky, consider that every extra bit of effort required to read a page creates another opportunity for a customer to stop reading. It’s not just a design issue. It’s a sales issue.
Even techniques that look dramatic — such as reversing light text on a dark background — need careful handling. Used sparingly and with adequate size and contrast, they can work well. When overused or applied to small text, they can quickly become exhausting to read.
White space plays a helpful role here. When designers allow content room to breathe, readers can process information more comfortably. Crowded layouts force the eye to work harder, which becomes increasingly frustrating as people age.
None of these adjustments diminish the quality of a design. In many cases, they improve it by making the message clearer and more inviting. And that matters more than most organizations realize. After all, the purpose of marketing materials isn’t simply to look impressive. Their real job is to communicate. If a beautifully designed menu, website, or presentation leaves part of your audience struggling to read the content, the design is working against the message.
Copywriters spend hours crafting language that explains a company’s value, tells a story, or persuades someone to take action. When thoughtful design makes that message easier to absorb, the entire piece becomes more effective. When design choices make the words difficult to read, the writer’s effort and expertise is largely wasted.
Beautiful design should invite people into your message, not become another obstacle between them and it. If customers can’t comfortably read what you’ve created, they won’t spend much time admiring how attractive it is.