Brain Tree Films: Using Fonts

As well as designing the icon for the logo I will also need to choose an appropriate font. There are literally thousands out there but I need to choose one that will properly represent my company. To this end I did some research into fonts and the psychology of them to hopefully illuminate my decision. I also wanted to research fonts more generally for use on my website and find the basic do's and don'ts. From the research I did the following were all areas that cropped up again and again from designers and theorists about typefaces that I would need to consider for my own choice.

• Know the fonts personality and match it to your target audience. Bold is masculine and strong. Serif is classy and high end. Slab is classic, vintage and structured. Sans serif is modern, elite and structured. Script is feminine, soft and classic.
• Avoid the default fonts. Ariel, times etc.
• Avoid cliche and cheesy. Comic sans, papyrus etc too childlike and no class.
• Using two fonts can be good. One may work best with logos but fonts can compliment each other too.
• Contrast two fonts if using do not make them too similar.
• Pay attention to size. Readable but not overpowering.
• Do not use all capitals we read by shapes and this makes it harder to read.
• Reverse font (white on coloured background) good for headings but watch for colour clashes.
• Watch line length, not too long shorter better than long.
• Consider line spacing or "leading" this is the space between the lines. Ease of read.
• Check for readability. Not overcomplicated, fonts, consider kerning and sans/serifs carefully.
• Watch the legibility. Similar to above but especially for logos etc make sure crystal clear.
• Correctly use small caps for chapters, company initials etc.
• Get rid of line breaks. Try not to use at all.
• Do not leave orphans a word hanging onto bottom of passage.
• Know when to highlight and when not to. Useful tool but never more than 10% of page.
• Can make good use of old style figures numbers etc.
• Check spelling, grammar and punctuation. No excuse for getting it wrong.

From all of this I did some initial research and experimentation with a variety of fonts for the logo and these are below. I thought that the ones that were working best were the sans serif typefaces as they had that modern and professional feel I was looking for. I did also really like the Menlo slab style too though which had a similar feel to the sans serif but a little bit of a serif on a few letters bringing a little class to the font. I will continue to experiment with these for the logo but feel I have made real in-roads.