As Paul Brand said once, “Typography is what language looks like”. When it comes to brand awareness, choosing the right fonts for your brand identity and communications is an important decision that can have a big impact on the way your customers perceive you.
The fonts you choose should reflect your brand’s personality and its values. They should be easy to read and make it easy for people to recognize your product and service offerings.
Which font style is best for a brand?
The truth is no font style works for every brand. Could you imagine Nike with Pepsi’s typo Harry Pro? Point sizes, line lengths, line spacing, letter spacing, etc., portray differences and create trademarks. The consistency between the values of a company and its look n’ feel is the key to powerful branding.
Here are 8 powerful hints for selecting the right fonts and typography treatments:
Consider your brand’s personality
Is your brand a Caregiver? Is it a Ruler? Use your brand’s desired image as the first filter to choose the right type for your brand. This identity should reflect the archetype of your brand and, of course, the personality of your buyer persona. The 12 Jungian Archetypes for brands are a great framework to establish these characteristics.
Take a look at tools such as Google Fonts or Fontshare in your search for the right fonts for branding.
Think about your target audience
Who is your customer persona? Who are you trying to reach with your brand? What kind of fonts do you think they will respond to? Appealing to your target audience will help you connect with them on an emotional level.
Check other businesses in the same space
You don’t want to look like your competitors, so make sure you check to see what your competitors’ font choices say about them. You may or may not want to stay in the same ballpark, emotionally, but you want a look that sets you apart and makes you unique.
Serif or Sans Serif?
Serif fonts have small decorative lines at the end of each letter stroke that can help to improve legibility at small sizes or from a distance. But they can sometimes look old-fashioned. Sans serif fonts do not have stroked lines and are considered to be more modern and clean. They can be a good choice for conveying informality, or for the text that will be read onscreen, but can be difficult to read in small sizes or for people with less-than-perfect eyesight.
Consider the usability of your fonts
Determine whether the fonts you choose will work with the programs you’ll use to create your marketing materials. The same is true when publishing fonts electronically. A viewer’s screen may not have the ability to display your fancy font choices, and it may substitute them for more common ones.
Keep it simple
Too many different fonts will overwhelm and confuse your audience. Stick to two typefaces—one for headlines and one for body text. At the most, you may add a third for special situations, however, finding three fonts that work together is more difficult than finding just two.
Use a font pairing tool
The objective of combining fonts is to choose ones that have a common theme while also providing an appealing contrast. Determining which fonts complement each other is often based on intuition, but we tackle this challenge using a neural network.
There are some tools, such as Fontjoy, that might help you to pair and choose the right type for your brand.
Get feedback
Once you’ve chosen your fonts, show them to people and get feedback. Ask what they think of the fonts, what are their first words about when they look at your typo and your logo, and how they feel the type choices reflect your brand. This feedback can help make sure you’ve made the right choices.
Choosing the right fonts for your brand is a crucial decision when it comes to creating a strong and impactful brand identity. Your choice of typography plays a significant role in conveying your brand’s personality, values, and overall image. By carefully considering these factors, you can choose the right fonts for your logo that effectively represent your brand and build a lasting impression and brand awareness in your audience.
