When it comes to creating a brand, one stumbling block my clients often find difficult to handle is choosing a font that best describes their brand values.

Unless you happen to be a typography nerd, navigating your way around serifs, sans serifs and other font families may all seem a little pointless. After all, what you’re looking for is a font that appeals to your eyes: it’s YOUR brand, so you want a font that expresses YOUR ideas.

All this is true, up to a point. The style and character of a font speak directly to our subconscious minds, and they are important factors that help us build our mental image of a brand, alongside color palette and brand voice.

Choosing a font is about giving the right vibe to the words that tell your story. It’s not just what you say that’s important, but also how you say it!

Fonts are so important that we can give a mistaken impression of a brand by using a font that is commonly used in an industry other than our own, for example using a handwritten font in the finance industry.

The serif font used in the header of the Financial Times speaks to us of stability, trustworthiness, and respectability. If it were changed to a handwritten font, whose message is about personality, whimsicality, and creativity, the FT might well lose its status!

You can read all about the basics of how to choose your brand fonts here

To help my clients find the font that best expresses the personality of their brand and how different font families have come to be linked to certain industries, I’ve created this simple graphic:

I have also produced this four-point checklist. Each question can be answered with a simple yes/no.

(between bracket add the font family you’d like to use)

1) Does a (……….) font describe my business? (Yes/No)

2) Does a (……….) font describe my product? (Yes/No)

3) Does a (……….) font describe my values? (Yes/No)

4) Will a (……….) font appeal to my target audience? (Yes/No)

Although these questions are simple, your answers will be based on knowledge essential to building any brand:

- What is your business?

- what is special about your product?

- what are your brand values?

- who exactly is your audience?

Without knowing the answers to these questions, it’s impossible to create a brand, let alone choose the right font!

If you’re having difficulties defining your brand or your target audience, you can book a 1-to-1 consultation at THE CONSULTING ROOM.

Where our creative director Antonella can help you with good ideas and advice!

If you’d like to download the handy chart, click here