Choosing the right font styles can have a big impact on your brand. If you get it right, typography can be incredibly powerful and elevate your brand to instil more trust and create loyalty. Like colours, fonts can change the mood of your brand and help you connect (or not) with your ideal audience.
The right font choice must always reflect the specific needs of the project. These needs are not only aesthetic but can be technical and functional. Some fonts work best in titles, while others read well in blocks of text. You’ll need to beware of those that are beautiful but can’t be read easily. It’s common to get seduced by stunning type that leaves your audience squinting at the screen and abandoning your website!
Some font families include a range of different styles like italics or small caps and weights (think thin, regular or bold), these fonts offer more options to fine-tune your design.
Using a combination of fonts gives you an opportunity to make your important messages stand out, make your content easy to consume and hit the right notes for stunning design.
A font refers not only to the style of type but also to the particular size and weight of the text. With so many options it can be hard to choose fonts and use them in a way that is cohesive and relevant. As with most aspects of design, there are a certain set of rules to follow when approaching any media that represents your brand.
Below we have listed our 8 font tips that ensure your branding and website design looks more professional and contributes to the message you want to send.
1. Choose a maximum of two or three fonts for your brand
Limiting your font choices to just two or three will help make your brand instantly recognisable. Using more than three fonts in any design can lead to a cluttered, messy and unattractive design. With too many fonts it can be difficult to pick out the most important pieces of information so your message can get lost and be confusing.
A brand that uses fonts well is Disney, their fonts are now familiar to all audiences, improving brand recognition and strengthening their brand.
2. Use brand fonts consistently
Now you have chosen your two or three fonts, make sure you stick to them! Keep a note of your chosen fonts so you can use them for everything you do. Your website, social media graphics, freebies and anything printed should match your brand fonts. Think of your fonts as a part of your brand identity, your style is what makes your brand unique and memorable. Remember, all brands must also be consistent and uphold quality standards that match the customer’s expectations. Simply keeping a note of your fonts so you can use them consistently will improve your brand recognition.
3. Use hierarchy to highlight important information
Combine fonts in a way that separates different elements like headlines, sub-headlines, body copy, and captions.
Splitting up your text into visual sections is a contributing factor in how the eye reads the page or design. Using larger fonts sizes, bold or coloured text helps the most important information stand out. Usually, your headings will need to be the most prominent but in a design for social media or print there could be other elements such as dates or venues that should be highlighted.
4. Use fonts that complement each other but are not too similar
It is vital to choose fonts that work well together since in most forms of media they will be placed in correlation to each other. A good way to check if your fonts are complimentary would be to create a sample piece of text with a heading and main body text to test out different choices.
Making good font choices relates to your style and creates a stronger brand that clients will be loyal to. If you’re using free fonts from Google you have the option to pair fonts together, just pick the fonts you like and use the share icon to view them side by side.
5. Focus on readability
Readability is key when choosing fonts, you can see from the example below that choosing a font for aesthetic reasons over legibility is a bad idea. Your customers are less likely to spend time reading significant information if the font is overcomplicated and confusing.
Be careful of using fancy decorative fonts, as sometimes the more simple fonts convey a better message to your customers.
6. Use appropriate font sizes
Be wary of the font size. Choosing a size too big can take up too much space and too small can be hard to read. The key factor is to be universal and create an easy reading experience for all audiences, remember to consider hierarchy and stick to a slow decrease in sizes from Heading1 to main body text.
7. Don’t use script fonts for blocks of text
Avoid using script fonts when covering a lot of information, these can be difficult to read and won’t look great. You need to be as clear and coherent as possible to gain maximum interest from your ideal audience. Instead, try using a simple clear font such as: ‘ABeeZee’ which will add readability and legibility to blocks of texts.
8. Use font styles to emphasise
Using bold, italics or colours to draw attention to small sections of text like headings but not the entire content.
Choose noteworthy keywords or phrases within your text to highlight in order to add emphasis. Try only to embolden few and far between words as overuse can have a negative effect, keep it short for maximum effect.
Where to find FREE fonts for logos, websites and graphics
You can find free fonts in every style! There’s a lot of reasons you may choose a free font, perhaps you’re just starting out and want to keep things cheap or don’t have the technical knowledge to add premium fonts to your website, maybe you’re using the free version of Canva and can’t upload premium fonts to keep your brand consistent. Free fonts are often familiar too and your audience likes familiar!
For any font make sure that you check the usage licence. Sometimes fonts can be free for personal use or just use on desktops but not websites. Before you create all your graphics with a font, make sure you can legally use it for commercial purposes and embed it on your website.
Font Bundles
Font bundles is a great place to search for original fonts from independent designers. They have some free fonts listed on their website and you can take advantage of the Free Font of the Week by signing up to their mailing list.
Google Fonts
Google Fonts is a library of 960 free licensed fonts, you can type the sentence you wish to use as an example and click on different font formats to see what it will look like for your graphics or webpage.
Creative booster
This is another link to a wide range of fonts available; if you check out the ‘freebies’ section you can find a great selection of free fonts for commercial use.
Where to find premium fonts for logos, websites and graphics
Font Bundles (again)
Find exclusive deals for fonts from independent designers. Premium fonts have an advantage over free fonts because fewer brands will be using them, giving off a more unique impression.
Creative Market
If you really want your fonts to stand out, check out Creative Market and find premium fonts. Most of the fonts found here are from independent designers and there’s a lot of choice. You’ll also find mockup templates, themes, photos and graphics.
My Fonts
Lastly, try My Fonts, an easy to use website with many options. You can choose between ‘relatable tags’ to define your font choice from categories. My fonts let you choose licences for desktop, websites, apps, ads and more and their licencing is clear.
Finally, Remember your message
Always remember the message you are trying to convey. What are you trying to say with your brand? Who is your ideal customer? What type of business are you running?
If your brand is a luxury wedding planning business you’ll be using different fonts to a brand aimed at fun kids activities. Think of a few words you’d like to use to describe the emotion of your brand, these could be elegance, trust, exclusivity or fun, loud, colourful. Have these tone words in mind when choosing anything for your brand.
Keep it relevant and remember to have fun!
