A picture speaks a thousand words, but what about the decorative aspects of your text too? By this we’re talking about your font style. The typeface which brings your brand message together and conveys an impression about your company. Whether you’re rebranding or choosing your design work from scratch for a start-up, you’ll want to put serious thought into selecting the perfect font for your brand. Why? Well, this is how you bring a voice and personality to your audience, so you’d better make sure it’s the right one!
Going Beyond the Logo
Of course, your font is not the only part of your design to focus on. It’s natural for brands to prioritise their logo initially as this is the imagery that will be displayed on all your promotional materials. From websites and stationery to clothing and vehicles, your brand logo needs to be striking and make a great first impression about the quality and personality of your organisation. But this isn’t where the work ends. Once you’ve caught the attention of your target market, you’ll need a strong secondary font to be used in your taglines and body content to offer clear communication with the reader.
Deciding Your Brand Personality
Before you begin narrowing down your font selection, it’s time to consider the character of your brand. This might depend on the type of industry you’re operating within. For example, a corporate brand might choose a more formal typeface for their communications, whilst a wedding venue company can opt for something a little more artistic and romantic. Remember that your brand personality is not just a question to be asked for the purpose of your font style. The type of lettering you choose should be consistent across all communication channels, to provide a unified brand aesthetic which doesn’t confuse your audience. Make sure that your typeface ties in well with your brand, your mission statement and the tone of voice you use in your blogs and social media posts.
Working With Free or Paid Fonts
When you start looking at font styles, you might initially feel overwhelmed by the sheer choice available. There are thousands of free fonts to choose from before you even begin exploring the world of paid fonts. Are you wondering if paid fonts are worth the investment? This really depends on your individual brand needs. Many free fonts are clean, attractive and could serve your brand well. However, you may find that there are limitations in terms of certain foreign language characters or currency symbols not being available. This is where paid fonts can provide you with that additional functionality, although this may not be required for all brands.
The main concern when choosing either a free or paid font, is that the text is clear, engaging and doesn’t detract from the message you wish to share with your audience. There’s nothing worse than a complex typeface which is illegible and leave your readers cringing rather than craving.
Which Styles of Font Match Your Brand?
To choose an appealing style of font that works well with your specific brand, check out the following groups of typefaces:
- Serif – traditional, classic fonts such as Times New Roman. Your eyes are accustomed to their shape already, which makes them extremely readable.
- Sans serif – a modern twist on Serif, which essentially takes the feet off the letters, so they look less traditional but are still excellent for legibility. Sans serif characters work well in low resolution and for digital use.
- Slab – these fonts are large, blocky and almost old school in design. They’re an excellent way to stand out from the crowd.
- Script – these are designed to look like cursive handwriting. They’re great at projecting brand personality into a tagline or logo but wouldn’t be suitable for longer chunks of text.
- Decorative – these fonts need to be used with similar rules to script font. Decorative typeface can look incredibly striking in small doses, but overdo it and you’ll be left with a font fiasco.
Book Your Design Consultation
It’s only natural to feel daunted by the array of fonts on offer, so if you’d like some professional assistance in narrowing down the field, get in touch with 5th Brand today to book a branding design appointment.
