Fonts, Fonts, Fonts
Fonts are typefaces - a specific style applied to characters, letters, numbers, and symbols. When choosing fonts, it’s important to reflect the brand's personality, tone, and values. Many companies use multiple, well-paired fonts as their standards while limiting their number to maintain consistency and avoid visual clutter. Whatever font you choose should be legible and easy to read for viewers.
There are four main types of fonts:
Serif Fonts: Serif fonts have small lines or strokes attached to the end of characters. They are often considered traditional, formal, and easier to read in printed materials. Examples include Times New Roman, Garamond, and Georgia.
Sans-serif Fonts: Sans-serif fonts are considered modern, clean, and more suitable for digital media because they don’t have small lines and strokes at the end of characters. Examples include Arial, Helvetica, and Verdana.
Script Fonts: Script fonts mimic handwriting and cursive writing styles. They can be elegant, casual, or playful. Examples include handwritten fonts, calligraphy, and graffiti fonts.
Display Fonts: Decorative display fonts are often used for signage, headlines, titles, or logos because they are bold or stylized. Examples include Impact, Lobster, and Bebas Neue.
There are literally millions of fonts to choose from. Some are free (open source), and some are commercial, requiring a license to use. Licensing costs vary depending on usage (office or web), number of users, and distribution. It’s important to check the licensing agreements of your fonts before using them to avoid copyright infringement.
Free Fonts: Google fonts, some Adobe fonts, Microsoft fonts
Commercial Fonts: These can be purchased through online vendors, such as Myfonts, Dafont, and Type Network.
Brand Guidelines usually define a font hierarchy - using different font sizes, weights, and styles to establish titles and headings vs. body text and to help guide the reader's eye through the content. One method of establishing hierarchy is font pairing - combining two or more fonts. Some font pairs create contrast, such as combining a serif or display font with a sans-serif font or a bold font with a lighter, more delicate one, while others use fonts from the same typeface family to maintain consistency. Font pairing is a somewhat alchemic process. To ensure harmony, it’s best to test your pairing and/or look for examples of already-proven successful pairings. Happy fonting!