Font Styles & What They Say About Your Brand

Just like colors, different fonts have different meanings. These meanings are typically defined by cultural references and can change over time. To make it even more complex, different combinations of a font's traits give different impressions about your brand's personality. It's important to understand the art of typeface communication when selecting your brand and logo fonts to ensure you are sending the right message. Subtle design choices say much more to your audience than you realize.

First, let's define what makes each different style and then we can get into the personality and examples of each. It is important to remember that many of these can work in combination giving additional personality context to your style. The different combinations can change how your brand is perceived by your audience.

• Bold: This is any font that has a thicker appearance. These can be heavier versions of existing fonts or can be considered anything with thick lines.

• Grunge: These types of fonts can vary quite a bit. They can either have uneven strokes, appear to be rough or uneven, or look like splattered paint. These are fonts that are generally non-uniform in sizing or styling from character to character.

• Geometric: These are fonts that have been created using perfect circles, squares, angles, and the like. They are generally minimalist but are characterized mainly by their clean look and even sizes among characters.

• Serif: This is a wide category that includes many styles. The key difference is that these have the "tick marks" at the ends of the letters. Serif font is traditional and is actually easier to read when printed.

• Sans Serif: This is exactly what it sounds like. This includes all fonts that lack the 'tick marks' on the ends of the letters. This type of font is easiest to read in digital formats.

• Italic: This effect can be applied to existing fonts or a font can be designed with the effect. Italic fonts are slanted to the right. They are used to emphasize a word or sentence.

• Thin: This is any font that has skinny characters - the opposite of Bold. It can be any font and does not require the entirety of the font to be uniform. The characters are generally very light in weight and have thin strokes.

• Handwriting: These are fonts that appear hand written. They can be standard writing or cursive.

• Script: This includes any font that is written with a cursive or calligraphic appearance. They can be casual or very formal.

• Bubble: These fonts are very rounded and typically on the bolder side. The characters can be uniform in shape or have a more casual, handwritten appearance.

• Decorative: These are fonts that are highly stylized. They are not suitable for paragraphs and should be used sparingly to emphasize specific words or titles. They can be great for logos.

• Vintage: These are fonts that have a distinct style from the past. They can be inspired by Victorian eras on through the 1990s. These are fonts that were extremely popular and common in their time so seeing them instantly gives the viewer the context of that era in your design.

Quick Guide to Typeface Psychology

What fonts do you use for your branding and marketing? Does the font "personality" match with what you're trying to communicate about your brand?