Finding your perfect type: How to choose a font for your brand

If you’re wondering how to choose a font for your brand, whether you’re designing a wordmark logo or creating a new website, we’ve got you covered. After all finding your type isn’t just important in the dating world; it’s crucial when designing your brand identity too.

The fonts or typefaces you use in your brand assets can be just as influential as your chosen color palette, or the images you use.

Just look at how Google tells users how versatile and user-friendly it is with its clean, minimalist logo, or how we at Fabrik use a sleek serif font to convey expertise when sharing blogs on our website.

In the world of branding it’s not just what you say that matters, but how you say it. With that in mind, here are our top tips on choosing a font for your brand, based on our years of experience helping other companies send the right message to their target audience.

The types of brand typography and their personality traits

Learning how to choose a font for your brand starts with defining what you want to say with your typography. Just like brand colors can hint at a company’s personality or values, thanks to the connections we have with different shades, fonts can help define your brand.

Each type of font has a different impact on your audience, that’s why whenever we’re working on a brand’s visual identity, we take the company’s core ethos and personality into account when choosing fonts.

Here are some of the most common “font type” options, and what they say about you.

Serif fonts: Formal, sophisticated, and authoritative

Serif fonts are sophisticated, traditional, and trustworthy. They’re considered the “original” font style, used by professional organizations and publications worldwide. These fonts are great for companies looking to build a reputation as an established authority in their industry.

Companies like Legal & General, Rolex, and even Time Magazine use these traditional serif fonts to demonstrate credibility and heritage.

Choose serif brand fonts when…

Choose serif fonts if you’re building a company with a formal brand personality. They demonstrate excellence, expertise, and quality, though they might seem a little “old fashioned” for some modern brands.

Sans-serif fonts: Modern, sleek and minimalistic

Unlike serif fonts, sans-serif fonts have smooth rounded edges, making them appear sleeker, more contemporary, and even more approachable. We even use a sans-serif font in our own logo and web content, here at Fabrik.

Sans-serif fonts are great for the modern age. They’re easily legible on any screen, and they feel straightforward and minimalistic, appealing to a wide target audience. The important thing to remember is that different fonts in the sans-serif world can send different messages.

Some are great for conveying a clean and stable brand, while others might look a little immature in certain contexts (such as comic sans).

An example from our portfolio: Zable

Choose sans-serif brand typography when…

Pick sans-serif when you want to convey simplicity and modernity in your website design, or you want to ensure content is legible on your website and other mediums. The right sans-serif fonts give your organization a modern look, and often pair well with a range of other typefaces.

Slab serif fonts: Bold, confident, and solid

Slab serif fonts (slab fonts), are a subset of the “serif” font style, with bolder features. If your brand’s personality is innovative, confident, and powerful, slab fonts could be a good choice for you. They often work well in logos and headers, but can become less legible in smaller sizes.

Quick tip: we’d recommend pairing these fonts with other, sleeker typefaces if you’re using them for website design, stationery design, or other printed resources.

Choose a slab serif brand font when…

Choose slab serif brand fonts if you want to make an impact. These fonts are great for powerful and eye catching logos, headers, and titles. They help to communicate a sense of authority, stability, and rugged durability.

Script fonts: Elegant, stylish, and luxurious

Script fonts are “fancier” than most typefaces. They’re all about swirls and curves, which often means they’re seen as more feminine than some traditional fonts. Like popular serif fonts, script fonts can seem sophisticated, but they’re also elegant, and sometimes luxurious in nature.

Depending on the fonts you choose, your script can convey ideas of creativity and freedom, like Disney’s playful logotype.

Choose a script brand fonts when…

Script fonts are a good idea when you want your brand to be seen as creative, free spirited, or elegant. Like slab fonts (and other decorative typefaces), they’re not ideal for smaller spaces, as they can be difficult to read at certain sizes.

They also look a little less professional in some environments than classic serif or sans-serif typefaces, so make sure you use them sparingly.

Decorative fonts: Memorable, unique, and eye-catching

In the art of typography, decorative fonts are the typefaces you use to leave a lasting impact on your audience. They’re even more unique and eye-catching than slab serif fonts, often combining unique components and elements with traditional styles to spark different emotions.

For instance, the custom font we created for Dobeo highlights the company’s focus on laundry and dry cleaning services with a unique graphic.

Choose a decorative brand typography when…

A decorative typeface is best for logo design projects, when you want to show off your brand personality and make a lasting impression on your target audience. They demonstrate fun, creativity, and originality, and help your brand name stick in the minds of your customers.

Just look at brands like Fanta, Lego, and McDonalds for insights into just how impactful decorative fonts can be in various industries.

An example from our portfolio: Gama Life

Handwritten fonts: Human, relatable, and youthful

Sometimes called “modern fonts”, handwritten fonts are often cursive in style, and aim to replicate natural human writing. Usually, these fonts fall into the category of “script” fonts, but they’re so diverse we thought they deserved a category of their own.

Handwritten brand fonts are common among luxury brands, sustainable companies, and organizations striving to build an authentic human connection with their customers. They evoke feelings of authenticity and friendliness.

Choose a handwritten brand font when…

Handwritten fonts are ideal when you want to make your company seem authentic and human. They feel more informal than popular slab serif fonts or sans-serif typefaces. They can also convey a range of different emotions, depending on the unique “calligraphy” you choose.

How to choose a font for your brand

Questions to answer

Once you’re familiar with all the main types of fonts you can use in your brand assets, it’s time to figure out how to choose a font for your brand. Here are the questions we ask our clients when choosing the right font for their branding projects.

1. What’s your brand personality?

The perfect brand font is one of the ways you convey the tone of your brand to your target audience. Identify the core components of your brand personality. Are you fun and laid back, sophisticated and authoritative, or bold and innovative?

Once you know the characteristics of your brand, you can look for a font style (and a design) that aligns with that brand identity.

Look at how Google’s logo font, for example, tells you how modern, friendly, and diverse the company is:

2. How many brand fonts do you need?

We often hear the question “how many fonts should a brand have?” here at Fabrik. The simple answer is as many as it takes to send the right message, without diluting your image. Typically, you shouldn’t be using more than two or three typefaces on a regular basis.

You’ll have the core font you use for your logo (if you choose a wordmark or combination mark), the typeface you use for headers and titles, and the font that appears in the “body” of your content.

All of these fonts need to work cohesively together, so think carefully about compatible font pairings. Some options that work well together include:

Sans-serif and sans-serif

Playing with different weights and font sizes in the same font family can be an excellent way to give your visual identity consistency, and contrast. Sans-serif is great for this, as you can use thicker sans-serif fonts for titles, and lighter options for subheadings and body text.

Sans-serif and script

Script fonts (or handwritten fonts) can add a lot of interest and visual impact to a brand, due to their creative and intuitive look. However, they’re overwhelming in large volumes.

Pairing them with sans-serif fonts is a good way to create the right balance in your marketing materials and avoid bombarding your audience with too much detail.

Sans-serif and serif

Sans-serif and serif can work well together to convey ideas of sophistication and authority, as well as modernity. You might choose a serif font for your logo, and a sans-serif alternative for marketing materials and copy.

3. Free brand fonts or paid fonts?

Next, decide whether you need to pay for your fonts, or whether you can access the typefaces you need for free. There are thousands of free fonts available on the internet in virtually every style, and many will be ideal for various use cases.

If you’re just looking for the right typeface for the content on your website, you don’t necessarily need to work with graphic designers. You can just choose one of the many Google fonts available that align with your brand personality and appeal to potential customers.

Just remember, some free fonts don’t come in every weight or style, and they may not have as many glyphs and components to choose from. You can find more advanced, premium fonts on sites like Adobe Fonts, Linotype and Fonts.com.

On the other hand, if you want to make an impact with the right typography in your logo design, or you want to create a unique advertising campaign, you might want to look into custom fonts.

Companies like Google, Netflix, and Samsung ensure their logo font makes an impact, because they’ve designed the right typeface from scratch.

4. Which font failures do you need to avoid?

While there’s no one-size-fits-all guide on how to choose fonts for your brand, there are some universal mistakes you’ll need to avoid.

Some fonts have earned meme status based on just how terrible they are for branding and marketing. You’re probably already familiar with the infamous Comic Sans, and Papyrus fonts.

Other mistakes to be aware of during your font selection process include:

Forgetting flexibility

The best font needs to be flexible enough to work in a range of environments. The core font you use for blog posts on your website should also work on your email templates, posters, flyers, and offline media.

Ensure you can maintain a consistent brand look with a flexible font that supports various sizes and weights.

Using too many fonts

Don’t go over the top when choosing which fonts you want to use. While it’s important to create contrast with different types of fonts, too many styles can harm brand awareness and recognition.

Keep it simple!

Overlooking legibility

Even the most eye-catching font won’t do much for your brand if your customers can’t read what it says. Perfect brand fonts should be easy to read, regardless of where you use them.

Choosing a font for your brand

Figuring out how to choose a font for your brand is more important than you’d think. Different font categories and styles can have a significant impact on how customers perceive your company. That’s why we take typeface selection so seriously in any brand strategy.

The ideal font should give your target market an insight into your company’s personality, while ensuring you can differentiate yourself from the competition.

If you’re struggling to find the perfect font to use in your logo, or across various platforms, like your website, and social media, contact Fabrik today. We’ll help you refine your visual identity, by guiding you towards your “type”.

Fabrik: A branding agency for our times.