Why Choosing the Right Brand Typography is Important!

Typography is an art form that’s often overlooked but holds immense power in communication. electing brand typography that conveys your business’s personality and values is one of the key elements of visual branding.

Let’s take a look at the steps that are taken to find your brand’s typography. We will also discuss the best fonts for branding, some examples of typography, and more.

What is Brand Typography?

Brand typography is a visual element of a brand style guide, that arranges your business’s written copy in a legible way and will also align your messaging with your brand personality. Brand typography and font are not exactly the same thing, but they are close.

Typography is the art and technique of arranging type to make written language legible, readable, and appealing when displayed.

Typeface is the name of a family of related fonts.

Fonts are the elements that constitute one typeface, such as weights, widths, and styles.

Why Brand Typography Matters

Typefaces and fonts tell the tone of your brand just like colors do. Clean, modern, and simple sans-serif fonts will reflect the audience in a different way than old-fashioned serifs. Monospaced fonts have a technological feel, while script fonts are more personable.
This is why it is crucial to choose typography wisely and understand why you’re using it.

Typography Defines How People Experience Your Brand

Branding is a total experience that your customers have with your business. Your customers will experience your brand through print, digital, retail and even T.V.
Typographical mistakes such as small fonts on a website — one of web users’ main complaints — will lead to a bad brand experiences.

Building Brand Recognition

Let’s think of Coca-Cola or Apple for a minute. They have even created and registered their own typeface as a way of making it a part of their identity. Typography and fonts affect the way your audience sees and remembers your brand because they are a large part of your visual identity.

When choosing your typography you will want to think of these things:

• 1. How does my brand make me feel?
• 2. Is it creating a positive experience for my clients
• 3. Is it memorable and recognizable
• 4. What tone does it set?

How to Choose the Right Fonts for your Brand

A good brand font should be legible, unique, and make a lasting impression. It should also work on different platforms like your website and social media, and, most importantly, communicate your brand personality effectively. Let’s understand the process of choosing a font.

Define Your Brand’s Personality

• Sincerity: thoughtful, kind, professing family values, down-to-earth
• Competence: successful, influential, accomplished, leadership-savvy
• Excitement: daring, carefree, youthful, up-to-date
• Sophistication: prestigious, elegant, upscale, charming
• Ruggedness: outdoorsy, tough, athletic

Now you can move onto choosing the font and typography.

Font psychology has its own traits and classifications. Let’s take a look at what that means:

Serif: Traditional, classical, reliable. For brands that convey a sense of respectability and age-long class. Times New Roman and Garamond are examples

Sans-serif: Minimal, clean, contemporary. For brands that evoke a sense of cleanliness and modern directness. Helvetica and Futura are examples.

Script: Unique, elegant, distinctive. For brands that emphasize their special purpose. Allura and Alex Brush are examples

Decorative: Dramatic, stylized, diverse. For brands that aim to be instantly memorable. Boho and Blueshift are examples

Slab serif: Confident, bold, off-beat. For brands with a proven history of quality. Avant Garde and Aria are examples.

Now we can look at typefaces that will be a good match for your brand personality.

• Minimal sans-serif font makes for a professional and corporate look
• Bold serif headers + nondescript sans-serif subheader conveys a trustworthy feel. 
• Thick and rounded sans-serif fonts create a youthful and friendly feel
• Traditional serif font conveys a conservative corporate feel
• Thin sans-serif fonts can be used to make an elegant, high-end feel

Your font treatment must be very consistent and not overly complex. You really do not want more than 3 typeface fonts

• A primary font: The default typeface which communicates your brand’s identity, values and personality.
• A secondary font: A typeface that complements the primary font and supports the typographic design system.
• A tertiary font: Font your brand uses for accents.

When you are looking for FREE font styles you can go to these websites:

https://dafont.com
https://befonts.com
https://www.fontsquirrel.com
https://www.fontspace.com

Brand Typography Takeaways

Coming up with brand typography can be a tedious process but it will result in increased recognition of your brand and attainment of consistent brand personality across all channels.
Save this post for later and go through the process so you have a better understanding of your own business. Follow these steps and you will on your way to success in no time!

• Understand and define your brand’s personality
• Understand the traits and personality of each typography and find the match for your brand
• Decide between open source, paid, and custom fonts
• Make sure the fonts you choose are legible, flexible, complementary to your other brand elements, and can follow your growth

Working with a brand designer helps this process as they will help you with the right questions. Consult with a professional with a 30min complimentary discovery call!

I hope you enjoyed this blog for spring. To read previous blogs you can go here.