For many people new to designing, picking out the perfect fonts for brand designs can be an incredibly confusing, overwhelming, and mystifying process. When it comes to fonts, there are endless choices -- right from simple and conventional-looking fonts to fun and unique typefaces.
But the right font for your design isn’t the most popular one of the most unique one, it's the font that can convey your message in the most effective manner. It takes the right combination rules and intuition to find the right fonts for designing.
Here are the top guidelines for picking and selecting the right fonts:
1- Understand the goal of your design
You should have a complete understanding of the purpose and mission of your design before you even start scanning for fonts. The font you choose should depend on the message you are trying to convey.
Before you move to the next step, you should have the answers to the following questions:
What’s the main niche?
What is the aim of the design?
What is your target audience?
How do you want the brand to come off as -- Casual, elegant, luxurious, playful, or anything else?
How do you want people to perceive the design?
2- Consider the text environment
The next step is to consider the environment in which your fonts will exist. If your designs will be printed, go for print-friendly fonts like Helvetica, Times New Roman, and Century Old Style.
On the other hand, if you are choosing fonts for digital designs, you need to consider the likelihood that your audience may see the designs on mobile devices. The fonts you choose should look good on all screen sizes without straining the end-users’ eyes. It's best to test your design on a variety of screen sizes to ensure the font is suitable for all kinds of displays.
3- Legibility and readability
Legibility is defined as the measure of how easily a person can distinguish individual characters of text. Kerning, contrast, upper case, and lowercase are some of the many factors that determine the legibility of a font.
According to a study, upright fonts are more legible than slanted or italic ones. Though, it is just one study and does not apply to all fonts. If you are unsure about the legibility of a font, we recommend the I/l/1 test. Select the font you need to test and type a capital I and then a lowercase l, followed by the number 1. In case you can’t tell the difference between the three, it may be time to switch the font.
Readability, on the other hand, is the measure of how well a person can read through the text on the screen. While legibility is more granular and it focuses on individual letters, readability is about how well people can put those individual letters together and read through the whole text.
4- Font personalities
Each font has a different personality and the font you select should embody the spirit and character of your brand. Fonts have their own specific design intent and attributes which should be taken into consideration which you pick one for your designs.
To get a better idea about font personalities, focus on font personalities
Serifs: These fonts look more traditional and serious. Serif fonts also portray safety, reliability, and history.
Sans serif: These fonts have a more modern, contemporary, and sleek touch to them.
Script: These fonts are based on the fluid and varied strokes created by handwriting.
Display/ Decorative fonts: These are unique and bigger fonts that are majorly used in small doses for headings and logos.
5- Font Paring
You have to make sure that the fonts you use complement each other. But at the same time, they should be different enough to have some distinction among them, or else they will become too uniform and defeat the purpose of using different fonts.
The quickest way to find a font pairing is by picking a font from each font family -- You can choose a serif and sans serif font, or combine serif, sans serif, and script fonts. You can also pair a broad and thick font with a more sleek and minimal font for maximum impact.
6- Test rigorously
Once you have finalized the fonts for your design, make sure to test it rigorously before taking it live. After all, you don’t know if a font will work until you have tested it on all the relevant screen sizes. You should also experiment with different letter spacing and height to make the most of the font you are using.
There are no rules when it comes to fonts
While these are just some guidelines when it comes to finding the right fonts -- there are truly no right or wrong answers. It's a constant learning process and you won’t really know which fonts work the best until you experiment with them.
If picking the right fonts for your brand seems overwhelming to you too, you can take the help of experienced designers at Prrowess. Our dedicated designers get a clear understanding of your requirements and deliver professionally created designs with the right fonts and messaging so you don’t have to worry about fonts at all.
Prrowess is an unlimited graphic design agency that also offers 10 days Money-back Guarantee.
Try Prrowess to see how it can help your brand with your design needs.
To Visit us, click here.