How to Choose Fonts That Reflect Your Brand Style
It’s pretty ironic how a font style makes the difference between attracting an audience and repulsing the masses away. You might’ve spent hours crafting the perfect content to showcase your brand, but it still won't reap fruitful results. Many novices pay little attention to this aspect, not realizing that unless there is coherence between the content and the font used, they’re bound to face setbacks. Hence, business owners need to pay special attention to this imperative brand marketing strategy while advertising their products or services.
There are tons of font styles floating all around you, many of which have become an essential brand identity tool. By merely viewing a specific font, we're able to guess the relevant brand. That's the power of choosing the right font. It resonates with a unique appeal for the customers, anchoring them to the content and fulfilling the marketing targets. If you’re wondering how to choose among the plethora of fonts the one that mirrors your business identity , here’s a detailed guide that’ll provide the head start you need towards developing brand equity.
The Importance of Typography
Typography consists of all the written elements on a page that make up its style. Before understanding the factors affecting typography, let us acknowledge some exciting facts. An experiment held by the famous writer and filmmaker Errol Morris included about 40,000 participants who judged whether different typefaces influenced respondents' answers or made the facts more believable. Several fonts were chosen, including Baskerville, Computer Modern, Georgia, Helvetica, Comic Sans, and Trebuchet. The results revealed the majority agreed to statements written using Baskerville, while Comic Sans failed to inspire confidence in the given content.
The results of Errol's experiment and countless others converge towards acknowledging the importance of typography for all businesses, starting with clothing brands and ending with creative ‘write my essay’ services. After all, the font serves as the first impression. The right typography boosts the site's visual appeal and adds a tone of voice. This plays a big part in what the words say to influence how those words are perceived. Hence, to divert, sustain, and increase traffic towards your brand, the content and image on social and print media need to be perfectly balanced.
Font Styles Classification
Before rushing into choosing a font style for your content, it's wise to acquire knowledge of the font catalog. More importantly, you should know the difference between the major types of fonts and their applicability. Most font styles can be grouped into four major categories:
Serif: These fonts have little-bracketed feet at their ends and have different sized strokes. These font styles are deemed as a classic and traditional choice. Popular fonts include: Times New Roman, Cambria, Rockwell, and Baskerville. Serifs are regarded as definitive, sophisticated, and high-end font style, popularly used in fashion companies, magazines, and newspapers. The corporate and legal sectors are well acquainted with these fonts since they're strictly formal.
Sans Serif: compared to Serif, Sans Serif is the “newer” version, with fonts not having the ‘feet’ but a constant stroke thickness. This makes it easier to read and enhances font consistency. Helvetica, Arial, Century Gothic, Corbel, and Montserrat are prevalent examples. Their advantage of readability and simplicity makes this font style versatile, authoritative, and well suited for body/paragraph texts and headings. That is why most social media content is usually written in one of the Sans Serif fonts.
Script: cursive, calligraphy, hand-lettering are all the elegant script styles that portray the unique style and feel. This category is famous among the high-end and classy brands using it to add an overall warmth and a sense of personality. They’re usually used for call-outs or short headings to strike the attention of the masses. When writing paragraphs or body texts, this font style isn’t recommended due to the low legibility. Some of the enthralling examples include Yellowtail, Lavanderia, and Freestyle Script.
Display: these font styles feature an interesting combination of decorative fonts and "display curls." For the informal advertisement, these can work out well; however, if you're aiming for uniqueness, these fonts might not fulfill your desire. Few engaging examples include Pinewood, Betty Noir, and Curlz.
Font Styles used by Popular Brands
Before you put your finger on any of the font styles mentioned above, it's better to have an idea of how famous companies have worked out. Their logos aren't merely a company symbol; it’s an integral part of their brand marketing strategy. It aims at impacting the customers and setting a footprint that helps them stay ahead of the competition.
Serif
Google’s former logo adopts a Serif Font, reflecting a decent blend of reliability and simplicity. Some famous luxury brands also go for a minimalist font style that resonates with legibility and elegance. These include Ferrari, Maserati, and Prada.
Sans Serif
Generally speaking, San Serif fonts are becoming more popular as compared to the conventional serif fonts. They are easily readable, and even from more considerable distances, one can spot their favorite brand. Popular brands that have opted for this font style include Kawasaki, Caterpillar, Microsoft, Panasonic, and Jeep.
Script
This typography is a great way to add some authentic and original feel to develop a strong style brand. Before the advent of computers, sign painters would use their brush and design hand-painted logos. Many of the famous brands have digitized their logo to keep this font style alive and running. Notable examples include Coca-Cola, Virgin, Kellogg's, and Kleenex.
Font Style Checklist
Now that you're well acquainted with the available fonts and know how top brands have molded them to resonate with an impacting image, it's time you brainstorm. This checklist will allow you to conjure the perfect blend between your company and its representing font:
What exactly is my company’s image?
Does my company have a vision?
What are the key features of my business?
What niche does my company target?
What is the nature of my company’s target audience?
What values do I want to emphasize? Trustworthiness, creativity, innovation?
Once the questions mentioned above are answered, you're well equipped to decide on the font style that goes well with the mood and work towards conveying the message in the right tone. Let's say you're a business enthusiast targeting the sports gear niche. Now you know that your target audience is sports enthusiasts that feed on energy, zeal, and quality. Hence, you won't simply go for a simplistic, formal approach; instead, you'll boost the customer experience through designing an enthralling logo. Or if you’re an essay writer, the fonts you use will matter for the text perception of your client.
Useful Tips
When deciding on a font, it's easy to get attached to a specific one; however, here are some tips that'll keep personal bias away and ensure complete coherence:
Consider the spirit and brand characteristics.
Be original. Do not attempt to imitate your competitors.
Try being simple. You probably won't appreciate ending up with a barely readable logo.
Avoid it’s better to say ‘cliche’ fonts
Combine several fonts and add your personal touch
Final Verdict
As exciting as it seems to build a brand identity, it doesn't come out as a surprise that many businesses fail at representing who or what they are and what their vision is. Not many realize the crucial factors that contribute to this, but choosing the right font style is pivotal to keep the brand’s wheels turning. Hence, whenever you’ve developed content to market, be sure to spend some time on planning and choosing the right font style. After all, first impressions matter!
