Advice: How to design (or redesign) your logo – Part Two: Fonts

The fonts you use in your logo go a very long way towards defining how you look to your customers. But with thousands of fonts out there to choose from, and virtually none to play with in a Font Menu on your typical computer, where do you start?

In the first post in this series, I discussed the first choice you have to make: whether or not your logo is a logotype plus a wordmark (a symbol plus text), or just a wordmark (text) only. Given that you can’t go directly to the third option, that is, a logotype only, you’ll need to support your logo with some text, and that text will have to be in a typeface.

Typography is the art/science of letters and lettering – the principles behind individual characters, spacings and styles. For those of you interested in the taxonomy, a range of fonts (bold, black, condensed, etc) make up a typeface (like Frutiger or Trajan) – although interchanging the two words isn’t a serious crime. Most font companies only use the word ‘font’ these days, and so a collection of fonts can also be called a font family.

The two major styles of fonts are probably already known to you: serif and sans-serif. The word sans is still used in French today, meaning ‘no’ or ‘none’, and the word serif comes directly from Latin, and means ‘feet’. Hence why a junior footsoldier in olden days was known as a ‘serf’. So, English lesson aside, a serif font has ‘little feet’, and a sans-serif font has ‘no little feet’. If you look at this font, Georgia, it has the little serif feet – all the bits of the font at the tops and bottoms of the verticals, and all the blobbly bits at the end of g, y and f. The opposite end of the scale, the sans-serif, is, well, on this page, very rare indeed… Check out the REBUSINESS logo over there to your right. If you wait for a few seconds, the ‘Work smarter’ and ‘Look better’ are a Frutiger typeface, a sans-serif font.

Now – getting back to the original topic, why did we spend so much time learning about tiny blobby bits? Well, because popular convention is that serif fonts are a little more old-fashioned (or more historic, to be precise), yet are more legible for reading large slabs of text at a time. Sans-serif fonts are generally more modern in appearance and in design, and can be used effectively either en masse, or used sparingly. They generally come in a range of different weights: thick or thin, referred to sometimes as either ‘black’ or ‘ultra’ through to ‘demi’ or ‘light’.

It’s probably at about this time that I’d better warn you of two things: 1) font choice is always a highly subjective thing, and 2) fonts cost money, so you can’t go around buying lots of them to ‘try them out’.

A great source to expand your typographical horizons is Linotype’s Font Finder.
They’ve organised their fonts so that you can browse by a dozen different methodologies – by theme, by style, by ‘inspiration’ – and once you find a font that you like, you can try out your own Wordmark there and then, and preview the results. Don’t be tempted to take a screen shot of a nice font with your words and call it a day – if the font really does fit, then pony up and purchase it, and make use of it throughout your business documentation.

If all this is a little overwhelming, by all means run all the options past a graphic designer – a central tenant of ‘their job’ is to learn, identify, and use fonts in a whole new way. My wife will attest that walking through a shopping centre with a graphic designer on hand is a real test of patience: ‘oooh, look, Caslon! …wow, look honey, Gill Sans Medium Condensed!’.

The trick is learning what each font infers. Some fonts are very casual in style, and can resemble handwriting or a classic circus poster look – wonderful for businesses wanting to convey a friendly message, but not great for an upmarket wine bar. Some fonts ooze style and class – which is great for a lawyer or an exclusive day spa, but not so hot for, well, a combo hip-hop/punk rock band.

It’s horses for courses, where the rules can be bent and broken, but some conventions need to be stuck to. Your choice of font needs to be readable by your audience. It needs to hold up at different sizes – so try scaling it waaay down on a computer screen until it’s the size of your thumbnail. Then scale it up (zoom in) until it fills the screen. Notice how different font weights look fine at some zoom levels, but far too fat or skinny at the ends of the scale. Most fonts have variations upon variations – each font is only a little bit different from another, so keep hunting (ie. persevere!) until you find one that has that ‘special vibe’.

At the end of the hunt, though, you’ll want to make sure that the fonts you use in your logo will be usable throughout the rest of your business. There’s very little purpose in using one lovely font for your logo, then a whole new (or old) set of fonts for your printed documents. Since your logo will most likely appear *on* all your other business documents, you’ll need one or two fonts that compliment each other – sorta like Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers. Sorta.

The concept of complimentary fonts is tried and true, although breakable, if you feel like it. Simply choose one serif font and one sans-serif font, and use them almost exclusively in preference of any others. I call it the ‘two-font-sandwich’. It’s a particularly strong method of branding – keeping your font selection to two very versatile fonts only.

The most famous ‘two-font-sandwich’ is good ol’ Times and Helvetica (Times New Roman and Arial for Windows users). It’s so prevalent that you have to purposefully AVOID IT, so as not to be seen of running into the trap of ‘not knowing any different’. Yes, folks, there’s font snobs out there. But, trust me, using Times New Roman OR Arial in your logo is the equivalent of going into a lovely restaurant and ordering ‘whatever everyone else is ordering’. It’s OK to browse the menu before you order, and it’s OK to choose something new and fresh.

For a shameless plug, plus a really strong example of a two-font-sandwich, check out ReBusiness.com.au – using only Trajan (for the headings only) and Frutiger (for everything else). It, ahem, works well – it’s strong and clear, and seems to promote the style and ethos of the business. Your mileage may vary, and all rules are open to be broken, but at least *knowing* some of the rules will give you a head start.

So go out and explore the world of fonts and typography – there’s heaps more to discover if you’re keen. But if you’re simply following along with my series, then stay tuned for the next post: colour. (No, not ‘color’, I’m from Australia.)

AB out.