What is typography...
And why it's so important to your brand.
Hindsight is a remarkable thing.
I didn't realize that typography class back in college would be a defining factor in my career. In first year, we had to hand draw Helvetica and Baskerville and I remember doing it and thinking – why am I doing this?
In hindsight, those classes were invaluable because they made me appreciate and understand the shapes and styles of letters and the space around them. I now have a deep love of typography.
The shapes of the letters, the vast amounts of styles that exist and the feelings they create. I can spend hours searching for just the right font for a project, tweaking the kerning in a logo, or the rag of a paragraph.
This may all sound like Greek to you, but in the world of branding and design it’s very important.
Let me teach you a bit about the lingo.
Kerning is manually adjusting the space between letters in a word.
Leading is adjusting the amount of space between lines of text.
Rag refers to the rough edge (typically on the right) of a paragraph.
Widows are a very short line, often one word and are considered bad typography.
So now that you have some basic knowledge, let’s talk about the different types of fonts there are. The most common two are Serif and Sans Serif, which I’ve shown below to explain the differences.
Fonts have strong personalities and a way of creating emotions. When designing a logo and brand for a business, it is important to understand the personality and target audience in order to choose the right font.
A traditional, conservative business would most likely use a serif font, while a modern, progressive business might use a sans serif. This is a gross generalization, but you get my point.
Here are samples of logos we’ve design that fit in to the Serif, Sans Serif, Script and Decorative styles.
So what kind of font(s) do you use for your logo and branding? Does it or they fit the message you are trying to get across to your target market?
Get in touch if you'd like to know how we can help.