Fonts Matter!
31 Aug 2009 Leave a Comment
in Print Tags: branding, Design, fonts, typography, websites
Find more great information at designingwithtype.com
Choosing the right fonts can make a huge impact on your design and branding. Typography is more that being legible and looking good, it manages to achieve two important objectives, a) to create an appropriate atmosphere, that says who you are, and with the correct alignment it instills trust. B). it also ensures that the reader gets the main message and becomes enrolled.
In today’s paper, Ikea, the Swedish furniture chain, had recently sent out its latest version of their catalog. The company’s decision to make its first such font change in 50 years from the iconic Futura typeface to the Verdana one, has caused a world wide reaction of upset on the internet.
Go figure? Well, people become related to the ‘feel’ of the image of font design creates.
I love fonts, and always have felt a connection to the personalities that fonts convey to the look and feel of a business. The font variations, including italic, bold, ultra bold, condensed, allow creation of beautiful brochures that are seamlessly and perfectly put together and presents an image for a company.
There are many basic classifications, and technological aspects of fonts, it is hard to cover them all here. But just for fun, here are our of the most common classes of fonts:
- Serif fonts, which have little “feet,” called serifs, at the ends of the lines that make up the letters. Some examples of serif fonts include Times, Palatino, and Garamond. These fonts are more traditional, elegant, and old-fashioned.
- Sans-serif fonts don’t have those feet. “Sans serif” means “without serifs.” Arial, Verdana, Tahoma, and Helvetica are some of the most common sans-serif fonts. These fonts are more clean and modern.
- Script fonts are calligraphic or cursive fonts. Brush Script and Nuptial Script are two common script fonts. Never use all caps in headings with script fonts.
- Display fonts are decorative and often used for logos or headlines. Make sure you can read it from a distance and that it is reproducible in cross mediums.
There is also a secondary font, used for headlines, sub-headlines, taglines and captions, and pull quotes, and these fonts accent body copy, but may not be the same family. That is why it is best to find a font that has many aspects to it that add flavor to your branding.
Fonts require special consideration with everything you do, and making sure that your branding is carried over with different mediums such as website design, car graphics, printed mediums and embroidery.
So make sure you choose your font carefully! You may be surprised when choosing the right fonts, the psychological effects it has on people that benefits you and your customers!
Resources:
http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2008/03/20/60-brilliant-typefaces-for-corporate-design/
