26 Mar From The Designer’s Corner: What the Font?
From color choice to image selection, a lot goes into creating a company’s brand. Every step of the process builds on the next to construct the core of what customers will experience when they interact with a company. Two of the most overlooked and most important pillars of this brand building are font selection and use of typography.
As I write this post, I have more than 11,000 fonts at my fingertips with thousands more waiting to be discovered online. With so many options, it can sometimes be a daunting task to settle on just the right combination for each client. The perfect font can define early on for consumers what a business is all about. A playful font might convey family friendliness. The right bold sans-serif font could display seriousness with a modern touch. And a traditional thin serif font might show a conservative and reserved approach.
From the Beginning.
In an ideal world, this process would start with a company’s logo. Think of the logos for many of the most famous companies in the world. Google. Facebook. Amazon. Coca-Cola. All these companies’ logos are defined by the proper font selection. The words “Coca-Cola” as written above in our blog’s font “Crimson” do not have nearly the same impact as the handwritten front that soft drink lovers around the world know so well. Choosing the right font at the earliest stages sets the tone for everything that comes after when building your brand.
But What About Typography?
Once a set of fonts is chosen, it’s time to decide how to most effectively use them. And that’s where typography comes into play. People often associate typography with more “artsy” uses of type, but that’s just one, very narrow definition. From an advertising and brand building perspective, typography generally boils down to determining size, color, and placement of a company’s message. In the above image, you can see the difference between simply placing type on the page and proper use of typography.
Going Big in 2018
As we head into the heart of 2018, the current trend is to go big or go home with brand messaging. Fewer words, bigger type, maximum impact. Consumers are always on the go and their attention spans are smaller than ever, so getting the message across quickly and effectively has never been more important. In the above examples, we used impactful typography combined with eye-catching photography to efficiently communicate our clients’ messages. A different font at a different size and in a different color could change the influence these messages have on a reader. That’s why font selection and proper use of typography can be the key to a great marketing campaign when establishing or just reinforcing your brand.
