Branding: Font Selection For The Brand

Logo creation, colors, typography design, and now font selection. Branding is a step by step process that requires a lot of thought, re-tests, discussion, and evaluating. Most of these steps are done simultaneously, but for the sake of not reading exceedingly lengthy articles, I'm breaking them down into categories to discuss. Font selection, to me, is almost like the icing on the cake. When you have finalized a design of how the logo with look and you have a color palette selected, it's finally time to break down the fonts that will be used in your branding.

Selecting fonts for your brand is typically easy after all the big stuff is done. You've already decided what you want the brand to say about your company, you've decided how you want your logo to represent you and your products, and all the other important questions you hopefully answered in the beginning. Now it is time to select some fonts. Usually you want to have 3-4 fonts for a brand identity. You typically want a header font, sub-header font, body font, and my personal favorite to add, a seasonal/signature font. Some people combined the season/signature font with either the header or sub-header font, but if you don't want a script for the main aspect of the brand, you can add it in that fourth slot. What is so important about having these 3-4 different fonts? Let me explain.

Header fonts consist of what is being read first. It is the attention grabber. It's the font you see when scrolling through facebook or google that catches your eye. These fonts tend to be big, bold, and apparent, but recently header fonts that have been becoming popular are Thin, script, and/or simple fonts for the Header. This specific style has become popular for Photography brands, Apparel brands, and even some Technology. The choice is up to the company for what they choose for their header font, but researching the market is definitely encouraged.

Sub-header fonts are the fonts that are typically directly underneath the header, and differentiates from it in some way. An example, If your Header is a bold display font, a serif italicized font might contrast nicely. Or if your Header is a script, a smaller, semi bond sans serif font would be a nice opposite. You want to think of header and sub-header as opposites. If one is thin, the other should be thicker. If one is serif, consider pairing it with a sans serif. Again, research, evaluating, testing, etc. can help you determine what the best option is for you and your company.

Body fonts are the fonts you will use the most, and they are typically the most generic and easy to ready. This font is for letters, official documents, posts on social media, etc. This font is what people will read the most from you company, and often not think too hard about its appearance, unless it is a super hard to read font. Serif or Sans Serif fonts are both good choices, and again will depend on your previous fonts selected, and how you want it to pair with your brand.

A seasonal/signature font is not required or entirely necessary, but I like to include it as an option. this allows your brand to have a script font on hand for when you create thank you letters, holiday posts, special promotions, etc. You can use a script font as a header, meaning you wouldn't need this addition. It all depends on your personal brand.

Logo creation, colors, typography design, and now font selection: we've completed the main parts for brand identity. We've asked questions, analyzed as a team, redrawn and regrouped, and we have created a beautiful, unique and well thought out brand identity. The next phase would be taking all the elements and compiling them into a graphically designed booklet for the company to use in all of it's endeavors for marketing, promoting, internal usage, etc. You've taken something that some people push off, and have put in time, effort, and money to create a stand alone brand that represents you how you want to be represented.

I'll be taking more time in future articles to cover more aspects of graphic design. Until then, keep creating!

Sincerely,

Just Your Average Graphic Designer in totally Digital World

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