1260 Productions

Fonts & branding for Small Businesses

There are many components of a brand identity: logo, color palette, font choice, and the Visual Vocabulary. There’s a lot of information available about the use of logos, colors, and Visual Vocabulary, but not much on the effective use of fonts. So, here’s some information on the creative, practical, and technical aspects of fonts.

Font Basics

A font is a set of all the letters in the alphabet, designed with similar characteristics. This is also known as a typeface.Fonts are usually designed to include several style variations. This can include styles like light, regular, bold, semibold, ultra bold, and italic. Some fonts also include “Expert” versions, which are fonts that include fractions and mathematical symbols.Font families are typically packages of fonts that include all of the different versions of a font. Using fonts with large families will give you a wide range of fonts to use in your materials, for variety and emphasis.There are many basic classifications of fonts. Four of the most common classes of fonts are: 

• 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. 
• Scrípt fonts are calligraphic or cursive fonts. Brush Scrípt and Nuptial Scrípt are two common scrípt fonts. 
• Display fonts are decorative and often used for logos or headlines.

There are other types of fonts as well, including handwriting fonts and all-caps fonts. However, the four listed above are the most common and useful in business communications.  

Creative Font Usage Guidelines

Each type of font has certain characteristics that translate into that font’s personality. A font might be serious or light-hearted, traditional or modern, legible or decorative, or any number of other personality traits. The traits of the font that you use in your marketing materials and business communications should reflect and enhance your company’s brand.Your company should have designated fonts to use in the following situations: 

• A logo font, which is typically not one of the fonts that come installed on Windows machines: it should be more unique and interesting. Some logos will have two or three different fonts in them. If this is the case, then consider using one of those fonts as the secondary font as well. 
• A secondary font, used for headlines, sub-headlines, taglines, special text such as graphics and captions, and decorative text such as pull quotes, which are the large quotes that are used decoratively in articles and documents. This can be the same font as is used in your logo. This is typically an interesting and unique font as well. This may also be used as the font for your contact information in your stationery, depending on its legibility. 
• A tertiary font is optional and may be used when the secondary font is not always legible, for mid-length texts such as pull quotes and contact information. 
• A serif text font, for lengthy printed documents. Printed materials are more easily read if they are in serif font rather than sans-serif font. 
• A sans-serif font, for shorter printed documents and on-screen use. Text on a computer monitor is easier to read in a sans-serif font than in a serif font. 
• A website font, which may be the same font as is used as the main sans-serif text font, depending on how that font translates for online viewing.

All of these fonts should have similar or contrasting characteristics. Choosing fonts with similar characteristics will make your fonts match and create consistency throughout your documents. Choosing fonts with contrasting characteristics will build visual texture and interest into your materials. For example, you could pick all thin, sans-serif fonts such as Arial and Frutiger to create a harmonious, matching suite of fonts. Or you could pick fonts with contrasting characteristics to create greater interest, such as using a serif font like Palatino for the headlines and then using a sans-serif font like Verdana for the text.

Each piece of marketing material or document created should have a maximum of three or four families of fonts on them. (A font family includes all of the bold and italic variations of a particular font, so using bold or italic effects does not count as additional fonts.) Using more than three or four fonts is confusing, and it looks unprofessional.Fonts can require special consideration when you send materials to a professional printer for reproduction, use them on your website, or send Word documents to others. Let 1260 take the guess work out by being your one-stop design team! 

Font Basics for Branding Your Small Business By Erin Ferree (c) 2007

Your product, our design – one planet

We are happy to finally announce completion of 1260 sustainablity! We invite you to discover what dozens of organizations have already learned: Green printing is an easy, inexpensive way to increase and promote your organization’s environmental consciousness while maintaining high quality standards. If you have any questions about our services or products, please feel free to call or send an e-mail. We’re happy to serve you and look forward to helping you promote your company, organization, product or event in a more sustainable way.Defining. [Eco-Design.] Solutions. 

Tags | Eco-conscience, sustainable products