Typography is one of those things people notice without knowing they have noticed it. The same sentence set in two different typefaces can feel like it came from two different companies. That is why your brand fonts deserve a proper decision, not just whatever was already installed on the computer.
The good news is that the decision is simpler than it looks. You need very few fonts, and a short list of practical checks will rule out most of the bad options.
What fonts say about you
Typefaces carry associations. Traditional serif faces, the ones with small strokes at the ends of the letters, tend to feel established and formal. Clean sans serif faces feel modern and plain speaking. Rounded letters feel friendly. Condensed, heavy type feels bold and industrial.
None of these is better than another. The question is whether the feeling matches the business. A solicitor and a soft play centre can both look professional, and they shouldn’t look the same.
How many brand fonts you need
Two is plenty for most small businesses, and one can be enough.
- A heading font with some character. This is where personality lives.
- A body font chosen for comfort. It will carry paragraphs, quotes, emails and forms, so plain and readable beats distinctive.
A single well made font family with several weights, such as light, regular, medium and bold, can do both jobs. Every extra typeface you add makes the brand harder to keep consistent and, on a website, adds files that have to load.
Pairing a heading and a body font
If you do choose two, aim for clear contrast or close harmony, and avoid the middle ground where two fonts look almost alike. A characterful serif for headings with a neutral sans serif for text is a reliable pairing. So is a bold condensed heading face with a wider, calmer body face.
Set a real page before you decide: a headline, a paragraph, a button and a phone number. Fonts that look good as a single word in a logo can be tiring across three paragraphs.
Check they are readable
Run each of your candidate brand fonts through a few practical tests:
- Small sizes. Set a paragraph at the size it will appear on a phone. Thin, delicate fonts often fall apart here.
- Similar characters. Type a capital I, a lower case l and the number 1 side by side. Then try 0 and O. If they are hard to tell apart, think twice, especially if you print reference numbers or prices.
- Numbers and symbols. Check the pound sign, percentages and any accents you need.
- Weights. Make sure there is a proper bold and that it is clearly different from regular.
- On a van or sign. View a short line from across the room. Script and very thin fonts rarely survive distance.
Check the licence
Fonts are software, and they come with licences. This is the step most often missed. A font that came with your computer is licensed for use on that computer, which doesn’t automatically cover putting it on a website, in an app or sending the files to a printer or signwriter.
Before you commit, find out:
- Whether the licence covers desktop use, web use or both.
- Whether it is a one off cost or an annual fee, and whether it depends on visitor numbers.
- Whether you can share the files with suppliers.
Many good open source fonts are free for commercial use, including on websites, which is one reason they are popular with small businesses. Whatever you choose, read the terms on the foundry’s or distributor’s site, and keep a copy of the licence.
A font you can’t legally use on your website isn’t a brand font. It is a logo font.
Think about speed
On a website every font weight is a separate file. Loading eight weights of two families slows the page for no visible benefit. Pick the two or three weights you actually use, and ask your web designer to host the font files on your own site and load them efficiently.
Write the rules down
Record your choices on one page:
- The names of your brand fonts and where to get them.
- Which font and weight is used for headings, subheadings and body text.
- A fallback for situations where the proper font isn’t available, such as email, where a standard system font is the sensible choice.
- What not to do: no stretching, no outlines, no extra fonts for special occasions.
Share that page with everyone who makes things for you. Consistency comes from the rules being easy to find.
Getting it right
Type works best when it is chosen alongside your logo and colours. That is what our brand identity work covers, and if you already have fonts but they are being used differently everywhere, ongoing brand management is how we tidy that up.
