Fonts. There are a lot of fonts in the design world and selecting the right one for your brand can kind of be stressful and overwhelming when you don’t know where to start. Deciding on which one you’ll use will either draw clients to you or chase them away. You may already have your logo designed, and using it would be a great start at narrowing down your selections. But what if you don’t? Let’s start with the basics.
Styles of Fonts
Before we had digital and the interwebs, a font was used for metal typesetting and each font had their own style, weight, and size and was called a typeface. In the digital world now, typeface and font mean the same and are interchangeable.
Serif Fonts
Style: Old, decorative, classic.
Example: Garamond, Minion.
What is a serif? A serif is the small decorative stroke attached to the end of a character.
Sans Serif
Style: New, modern, clean, more readable.
Example: Arial, Futura.
A sans serif is just what it says; a character minus the serif.
Slab Fonts
Style: Blocky serifs, typewriter.
Example: Rockwell, Courier.
A slab serif font while similar to serifs, differs because the ends are a bit thicker and with block-like serifs on the ends, more square and can be angular.
Script
Style: Handwriting, cursive, decorative.
Example: Edwardian, Gothic Blackletter, Brush, Hello Beautiful.
Script fonts are more like handwriting or calligraphy. These fonts are often used for greeting cards and invitations. These are more elegant and offer a personal touch. They can range from formal scripts to casual. Casual scripts are gaining popularity.
Decorative
Style: Highly stylized, vintage.
Example: Sloppy Paint, Blacktop, Keep on Trucking.
These fonts are extremely diverse and used more for signage to convey a message. Think of this category like graffiti or ‘70s style type.
Where to Start with Font Selections
First, pick a style that compliments your brand and your message. Combining two to three different styles is always recommended, but don’t over do it and don’t use just one over and over again. You also don’t want to use so many that it makes your design or website hard to follow. Treat your fonts like an extension of your art, because that’s exactly what they are and they each have their own moods.
Can I Use Free Fonts?
Yes! You can use free fonts and there are millions out there. Free fonts do have some drawbacks though. They won’t have all the bells and whistles such as numbers included or special characters, and a lot may not have bold or italic.
Licensed fonts, on the other hand, will have all of these options. They can be pricey but the entire font family can include ten or more styles. (The Helvetica font family has hundreds of styles included).
Still feel overwhelmed with font selections?
Join us in Get Marketing Momentum and we’ll help you figure it out!
Post Author: Randi Sparkman
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