Fonts And Feelings

To truly connect with your target audience, your brand identity must incorporate the many facets of your business. The design of your logo, which often includes a particular style of font, must therefore work hard to communicate these various features quickly and effectively to influence the way your customers think about your business offering. So, with a never-ending choice of typefaces, how can you be sure the font used across your marketing materials connects emotionally with prospective buyers?

There are many different types of fonts but most can be categorised into styles. Serif fonts, those with feet, are used in a traditional sense. Sans serif, without feet, are fonts generally considered to be more contemporary, as they are linear and clean. Script fonts are cursive in style and are therefore used to create a feeling of elegance and opulence. Display fonts are used less frequently, as they are highly decorative and bold in style.

When setting out to identify an appropriate font, it is always good practice to identify the style, qualities and characteristics you wish to represent. By creating a comprehensive brief about how you wish your logo to be perceived, you can begin to match suitable fonts with greater accuracy. Rather than simply choosing a good-looking font and focusing on aesthetics alone, you can select a font that best represents the features and properties of your brand.

Once you have identified a number of fonts that accurately portray the attributes of your brand, you can begin to assess the practical merits of each one. It is likely you will need to communicate your brand across a number of different mediums, including business cards, corporate stationery, websites, social media profiles, brochures and promotional literature. The scalability of the font across each format is essential to ensuring it remains readable and continues to engage with your target audience.

Once you have selected a suitable font for your brand logo, you can explore compatible designs for headings and body copy. Use a similar approach to selecting these fonts to ensure you retain the value of your brand throughout. Only then will your brand come together to consistently connect with and influence the thoughts of your target customers.