At Project Pi, we usually write our own content, but today we have a guest post from Michelle Richards on how to choose the best font for your business logo. Enjoy.
Q: What’s the best font for a business logo?
A: Are you kidding? There are some millions of fonts in existence! How can any one of them be the best?
Well, even with that crazy amount of available fonts, rest assured that there is the best choice — and you can find it. The thing is, the best font for a business logo really depends on the type of business. So what works for one brand won’t always work for another.
Don’t give up just yet, though. Let’s take a look at six key steps that will help you to narrow down your search and choose the best font for your business logo design.
Step One: Know The Brand Personality
Like any aspect of branding, it’s vital to make sure that the personality of the brand and the message of the branding choices align. It’s possible to make a complete misstep in branding — for instance if you have an organization called “League to End the Use of the Color Pink in Branding” and then the logo is exclusively done in pink, people might wonder. Sure, maybe it’s ironic, but more likely, it will be seen as a misstep in branding.
Not all such misalignments are as blatantly obvious. Fonts can be difficult to peg-like any branding element or design choice; there’s underlying psychology that colors show how the font is perceived and received by your audience. It’s important to do your research and make sure that the inherent message of the font lines up with the personality of the brand.
Step Two: Check Your Competitors
Another factor is the competition. Before selecting a font, you need to know what your closest competitors are doing with their own business logos. This requires market research, which should be done as a matter of course before opening up a new venture anyway.
This market research will tell you what design trends exist in your market or niche and help you ensure that you don’t fall prey to a “lookalike” or “copycat” logo design. A fundamental factor of a good logo design is uniqueness. The last thing you want is mistaken for a competitor — or for a competitor to be mistaken for you. Either way, you lose out on establishing your brand and potentially lose out on customers as well.
Step Three: Keep User Friendliness In First Place
The most well-designed business logo in the world isn’t worth a whole lot if the typeface it uses is illegible.
Or, even if not entirely illegible, if it’s misleading or difficult to read, it will also cause brand recognition and memorability problems.
When selecting your font, remember that the typeface content of your logo design is a direct pathway to communicating with your audience. Make it easy for them, and choose a well-designed font that is easy to read.
This also requires that you factor in other logo elements, such as color, spacing, and images, and make certain your font choice plays well with everything else. Font choice isn’t just about your own personal preference or even aesthetic considerations — it’s about contributing to the effectiveness and workability of the design as a whole.
Step Four: Keep It Simple
Along those same lines, opting for simplicity will help you to narrow down your potential fonts. A simple, clean font makes the logo easier to reproduce, cutting down on instances of fuzzy or illegible printing mishaps.
Simplicity also makes the logo easier to read, understand, and remember. Rather than opting for a logo with many swoops and swirls, ask yourself if your logo would be easy for one of your customers to draw from memory. The easier a logo is to remember, the more effective it is for your brand.
Step Five: Consider Designing Your Own Font
We know, we know, we started this article by talking about the crazy number of fonts there already exist. But there’s always the chance that you might want a font that is completely your own. This is definitely a consideration, for instance, if you’re using a wordmark, lettermark, or monogram logo style, where the font you choose actually makes up the bulk of your logo.
There are plenty of freelance designers who could help design your own font, or you could take advantage of free logo design tutorials and do it yourself, like this letter C logo tutorial. Either way, a bespoke font is a great way to make your business logo really stand out.
Step Six: Get Feedback
A sixth and final important step to choosing the best font for your business logo design is to get feedback on the font choice and how it plays into the overall effectiveness of your logo. You have many options, so there’s no shame in trying several different possibilities to choose the one that works the best for your audience.
The feedback you get may reveal that your choice isn’t optimal for your design. Then it’s time to revise a little and try another font. Remember, your own personal preference should not be the driving force behind choosing a font, or any other visual element, for that matter. Logo design is only as good as its effectiveness.
Choose Your Font Wisely
There are several tools and resources available to help you choose your business logo font. Some provide free fonts, and others suggest fonts with easy licensing for commercial use. Here are just a few of them.
Whatever font you end up choosing, make sure that it’s easy to read, fits your brand, and stands out from the crowd. With attention to the psychology of fonts, you can definitely find the absolute best font for your business logo.
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Michelle Richards loves to chew on words, graphic design, and bubble gum. Her writing reflects all this combination – practical, aesthetical, and fun. She also likes to explore technical topics such as web development and gadget reviews.
Further Reading
ExpressText.net has an excellent article on the psychology or colours that might help you with your logo design.
