Here’s How to Use Your Typefaces!
A brand font is a specific typeface that is a part of your visual brand identity. They will be a part of your brand’s guidelines that will help you be consistent when creating new materials such as business cards, sell sheets, booklets, billboards, social media graphics, and more!
Because fonts have so much personality packed into their little characters, it’s important when building your brand identity that you select the right ones and use them appropriately.
Brand Font Hierarchy
There is a hierarchy of brand fonts and when to use them, and it starts with your logo. Your logo may be or contain a Wordmark or Lettermark; think about brands like Coca-Cola, Disney, H&M and KFC. These typically use fonts that wouldn’t be very cohesive in an environment which contains a large amount of text.
Could you imagine trying to read an entire paragraph in the Disney font? Yikes… it would be really hard on the eyes and difficult for consumers to get the information they need. Sometimes, a logo font can be used sparingly for other materials, but you will typically have a secondary font that will be used for text-heavy items.
Secondary Brand Fonts
Having a secondary font to use for all other body copy will make it so much easier to stay on brand and be consistent throughout all of your brand’s materials. Your designer will help you choose something that is simpler and easier to read but keeps the same aesthetics of your brand.
For example, Coca-Cola uses a minimal sans-serif font called Gotham in their marketing materials.
More Fonts?!
Lastly, you may need a third font to be your staple website font. To keep it simple, not all fonts work the same on all devices. Annoying, I know, but there is a list of Web Safe Fonts that are standard and work consistently across all devices. A few of our favourites are Arial, Helvetica and Times New Roman.
Looking for a new brand font?
There are a lot of great places to find them. You want to make sure you have the correct usage for them, just like with photography or design, fonts are someone’s intellectual property. There are great free font sites like FontSquirrel that have high-quality, free-to-use fonts. You can find gems on places like DaFont (but usage varies from font to font) and sites like Creative Market have inexpensive fonts for you to use.
Having 2-3 go-to fonts for your brand will help with consistency, and brand recognition, two important factors in turning your business brand into a money-making investment!
Feeling overwhelmed?
Does picking the right brand font fill you with panic? Fear not! We are available for free half-hour consultations that will get you started on the right foot.