Font Selection: An Important Step to Your Company's Success

Choosing the right font design is the first and most vital step in making an identity for your brand. With the right font, you can become instantly recognizable to customers, and at the same time convey a message about your business. There’s no denying it – font selection is the all-important step in building an image that customers can relate to.

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Standing out from other brands is a very important factor when considering which font to use. You wouldn’t want to borrow the same font and style for your logo as another company – this would confuse and could even offend potential customers. However, certain elements of another, more recognizable company’s font could be used and this could bring subtle association to your own brand. Many popular brands are instantly recognizable by their font (think IBM, Coca-Cola, Ferrari, Disney, etc) and you simply could not separate the font from the business, the two are so integrated. This is the mark of truly successful font use, and only the best businesses have achieved it. Thus, you can see how important font selection is.

When selecting a font for your company’s logo, keep in mind that fonts that are congruous with your company’s area of expertise are most effective. For instance if you run a law firm, it is best to have your font to be something more conservative than eccentric and that reads easily and stands boldly. On the other hand, if your business is an art store, you could go with something more relaxed, fun and free-flowing. However if your logo is not an accurate reflection of your business, customers will venture toward other businesses that represent themselves more clearly.

One of the most common questions that occurs when choosing a font is – serif or sans-serif? Serif fonts are typefaces that have the little projecting features (called serifs) at the end of strokes. These are the more classical looking fonts, and are well established in typography. Sans-serif fonts are typefaces without the serifs and appear to be more modern. Sans-serifs are also typically used as titles and headlines, while serifs are often used as the body of texts.

However, this is simply tradition and sometimes it is far more effective to break away. In fact, serif and sans-serif fonts are most effective when they are used in conjunction with each other. For example when one word is serif and another is sans-serif it actually brings a lot of visual interest and is much more attention-grabbing to consumers. However, as a rule it is better not to mix more than two families of fonts together or otherwise your logo can become very hectic looking.

Thanks to the tireless efforts of design firms and typographists, there are so many font choices to choose from today. Take time to experiment with the different options to determine the right image for your business.