To remain relevant, brands have to evolve themselves from time to time via product innovation, advertisement campaigns, and certain digital marketing strategies. In all cases, they need to choose a brand font that creates an identity for their company and builds communication with their loyal customer audience.
However, many brand websites have experienced great challenges. So, for starters, how do we choose a font? In many industries, people use fonts with calmness. Even at Monotype, there was huge appraisal upon the release with broad labels, like ‘appropriately made according to the demands of the branding design’.
You can see fonts and typography all the time. You are even seeing it right now. But, what are the differences between different fonts? What fonts are preferable for business purposes? Which brand font should be avoided at all costs? This article will look into the steps that you should take when you choose a font for your company and the fonts that you should avoid.
Specific font for a specific business
Image taken from Cozykin Montessori Nanny Shares
Considering the importance of a brand font in today’s market, you must choose the best font for your specified business. Based on your targeted audience, your items, services, and for the betterment of your business, your font can change.
There are a few guidelines regarding the choice of fonts for businesses that you must go through. First, determine that your business falls in which of the following categories.
- Formal
- Classic
- Dramatic
If your business falls into the formal or classic category, you may use the thin font or serif font as your main font. Similarly, if your business falls into the dramatic category, bold font and a Sans serif could be an ideal brand font combination for your business.
Below, we have shared a few examples regarding the implementation of many fonts.
・Serif
Serif involves a professional feeling for a brand. Therefore, it can be used for substantial or light branding.
・Sans Serif
Sans Serif is arguably the most significant style for body fonts. It is versatile and is also considerably legible.
・Script
A script usually is associated with traditional values. However, it can also be used for modern branding. It is not recommended for body fonts as it can involve a feeling of opulence.
・Display
The display is least suited to body fonts, but it is best used as a large size font. It may involve numerous feelings and emotions. You can use it for dramatic branding.
Steps for Choosing Your Font
Even though it is less important than brand marks and images, selecting an appropriate brand font connects your company. It gives your company identity. Regardless of it being in printed form or online, a healthy font can attract your audience, whereas a poor one can make your company feel neglected.
Below, we have shared a guide that will enable you to select an appropriate font for your company. It is not as difficult as you might believe.
・Opting for your main font
Image taken from Mindset Online Course- Dr. Eve Meceda
The main font is the most important aspect of your entire brand font, as it is also part of your company’s logo. It will also be used in the main headers.
We recommend opting for Google Fonts. They have numerous options at their disposal, and they are easily downloadable across all operating platforms.
・Opting for your supporting fonts
Supporting fonts must be chosen in a way that they correspond with your main font. You must remember this clearly, and have a choice of three to four fonts for your respective brand.
There is also a possibility that your chosen main font is highly stylized. In that case, you can look into the fonts for main headers and also for your body font. Two fonts are more than enough.
・Ensure that your fonts complement each other
Image taken from Dave Mcveigh Creative
Having an exciting font combination is the most significant aspect of the success of your respective brand. The simplest way of doing it is by typing the pair of those fonts in any software available on your operating system.
You must analyze them together and decide if you feel they are combining well. You should visualize if their style and appearance are matching, or they look ideal together. If you still feel that you need help in choosing the best font to correspond with your main font, there are many online tools available to give you suggestions regarding the best font combinations.
・Styling
Image taken from Two Little Bells
Now, as you have decided upon your brand font, you must look into how you can style them. But isn’t that what we have already gone through? Not entirely. Styling means choosing a way in which your fonts are used. For example, they can be bolded, in caps, or italicized. We will look at this below:
・Styling your Fonts
We won’t be surprised if you have stylized fonts before. If you have bolded, italicized, or used caps, you have simply stylized fonts. Now, when we talk about brands, styling must be done considerably and appropriately.
・Bolding
If we talk about stylizing fonts, bolding is the most common treatment regarding that. You can bold fonts found in main headers, especially there are multiple headers of different sizes.
・Italicizing
Even though it is less common in styling, italicizing fonts can also be crucial for the welfare of your brand. Italicizing is done mostly to emphasize small words or small texts.
・Capitalization
Many people may have told you to stay away from caps because it involves a feeling of yelling. However, there are ways in which you can use capitalization. The most important for capitalization is that you should never use it in your body font. If your text is in a paragraph or multiple sentences, do not use caps. For headers, logos, and titles, capitalization is preferable. If you use caps in your headers, use them in smaller headings as well.
Fonts that you should avoid
Image taken from The Winemaker’s Loft
In a world where companies are looking for the best brand fonts for their identity, there are many choices that you must avoid for the sake of your business or company. Everyone has their likings and dislikings regarding fonts, but some fonts can destroy your company’s reputation.
Even though there are fonts that are included in the list of poor brand font combinations, they are continuously showing up. These fonts are unprofessional and commonly viewed as simply ‘terrible’. Therefore, they are not recommended by any well-known business across the board. We have provided a checklist regarding those choices below:
・Comic Sans
The first font to go in this category is Comic Sans. As it has an unprofessional and poor appearance, it should be the last thing you should think of when you choose a font for your company. Comic Sans’ poor reputation can be seen by the fact that even comic books do not prefer it.
・Papyrus
Papyrus is widely viewed as the second-worst font in today’s market. This font received a huge negative backlash after its use in the avatar of James Cameron. This font will only be recommended for an Egyptian-themed birthday celebration.
・Hobo
Just like Comic Sans, we discussed above, Hobo also has an unprofessional appearance. Many organizations choose this font to associate with children. However, even in that category, there are better brand fonts available. You must continuously remind yourself to not compensate for your professionalism, even if your business is stagnant.
・Stencil
Even though it has specific uses in charitable or construction organizations, Stencil is another font that was not made professionally. There are many other brand font combinations that you can look for in the military or architectural sectors, like a bold Sans serif.
・Brush Script
Brush Script is usually used for signature or as an innovative script font. There are many script fonts you can use for professional purposes.
・Times New Roman
You might think that Times New Roman should not be making this list because of not being unprofessional. However, there are other reasons it makes the list. It is just so blatantly boring.
・Calibri
Just like Times New Roman that we discussed earlier, Calibri is also extremely one-dimensional for branding. With the wide range of font combinations, it is better to consider an alternative font, like Helvetica.
Conclusion
It feels like there are many rules and regulations surrounding fonts and typography. However, once you step foot into it, you realize everything comes down to visualizing the fonts professionally. Just like many other parts of your brand, you shouldn’t just look for the best font without considering if it fits the profile of your company or not.
Nevertheless, that doesn’t mean that you should compensate for your professionalism. Strikingly is an operating management system that will give you the balance. If you need any help to set up your brand font, you can check our website blog posts and the corresponding brand information.
Our provided information will ensure that your business grows to its maximum capacity. Or, if you are already in the advanced stages and want to design a website for your brand, check out Strikingly to get started.
