Typography describes the art of styling and arranging letters, numbers, and symbols to appear in blocks of type as printing upon a page. Typography can be used to convey a brand’s character and personality to its audience making it a major choice in branding.
The Four Basic Groups of Typefaces :
- Serifs
- San-serifs
- Scripts
- Decorative Style Fonts
Some fonts pair better with others. A serif typeface has tiny feet or lines connected to the ends of strokes in letters or symbols. It is often used for well-established, natural, or high-end brands. A sans-serif is the opposite of a serif. It is more geometric in shape and does not have tiny feet or lines at the end of strokes. San-serif fonts communicate messages for brands like contemporary, cutting edge, and fresh.
Script and decorative fonts deal with readability issues from unclear letters and symbols, so it is typically safer to stick with serif and sans-serifs when selecting a font for a brand. The rule of thumb is to select two to three typefaces max per brand to keep designing simpler.
Choosing Brand Fonts Include:
- Combining a serif with a sans-serif
- Contrast font sizes or font weights
- Avoiding selecting similar typefaces by steering clear of similar classifications
- Establish a hierarchy of fonts and assign specific roles to each font
- Use fonts from the same typeface
Elements of typography to consider for print and web design include consistency, alignment, color contrast, font size, whitespace, leading, and kerning. All of these factors can affect the visual hierarchy of a design. Visual hierarchy is created by arranging elements in a way to show their order of importance. Visual hierarchy allows marketers to control the delivery experience of a design to an audience.