Are you ready to launch your brand? If you’re still putting together your logo, then you’re not quite there. There are a lot of aspects to logo design, and good brand visuals are vital to the success of a company.
One of the primary elements of good logo design is the choice of font. On the face of it, this choice might seem straightforward. The only really important factor for a successful typeface is legibility, right?
Not quite. As you analyze your competition and look for inspiration in other business logos, you’ll likely find that certain types of businesses use certain types of fonts. Not only that but there are trends and even psychology factors to take into account when choosing your type.
Here are six steps to help you pick out the top-tier font for your business logo design.
Analyze Your Brand Identity
When making any visual or branding-related decision, it’s a good idea to go back to the drawing board — and that’s not just because we’re talking about getting creative. Your logo is the ambassador for your brand, the most common visual representation of it, and often the first exposure that new customers have to your company. As such, it needs to be the following:
- Memorable
- User-friendly
- Unique
- On-brand
All of those are easier said than done, but the most basic layer of creating a logo design is making sure that the design is on-brand, on-message, and aligned with your company as a whole. Is your brand fun and quirky? Traditional and trustworthy? Edgy and goal-centered? Whatever the personality of your brand is, you want a logo that matches that. Fonts can also make or break the brand alignment of your logo. (See the section on the psychology of fonts.) So it’s important to have that personality sketched out beforehand so you can make sure each element of the logo matches up.
Check Your Competition
Before you move on to making actual creative decisions, do your research. You likely already did some market research when creating your company, so you probably know who your main competitors are. This is the time to look at how they’re branded. One of the desirable features of a good logo is uniqueness. Knowing how your competition is branded will help you to get that feature dialed in. Analyzing your competitor’s branding will also tell you something about the current trends in logo design within your market, including what types of fonts — and maybe even which specific fonts — are most likely to be used. This can further play into your own choice.
Remember that trends aren’t always good — but they’re not always bad, either. It’s never a good idea to do something simply because the competition is doing it, without looking at whether it’s on-message for your own brand. But paying attention to trends could actually expose you to some great ideas that do work well for your own company, so don’t discount the bandwagon before you take a look at what it’s hauling.
Decide What Logo Type You’ll Use
Now we’re past the initial research phase of deciding on the best font for your business logo and starting to make real decisions. The type of logo that you intend to use should influence your choice of font.
For instance:
- A letter mark, wordmark, or monogram logo is font-centered, so you need to ensure that
your font choice really stands out. If a photographer’s studio logo has their name as a
logo then a creative font or even a professional font will look better. - A combination mark uses a graphic as well as a lettermark or wordmark, so the typeface
doesn’t need to take center stage.
The type of logo you choose will often depend on the type of business you have.
Look At Font Inspiration
One of the most often-repeated tips for graphic designers is to look at successful examples for inspiration. This doesn’t mean just copying what’s already out there — remember you want your logo to be unique — but it does mean that you can get some great ideas from designers who
have gone before. Use creative design sites like Behance.net to get an idea of the type of logo you want — and the type of type that you could use to best effect. There are tons of fonts available — design inspiration will help you to narrow down the best options for you.
Research The Psychology Of Fonts
The psychology of fonts, much like the psychology of color, is based on the idea that we tend to perceive certain fonts or groups of fonts in a certain way. This means that the reaction of your audience can basically be predicted based on how they are likely to view the font.
For example:
- Sans serif fonts are typically seen as modern and clean
- Serif fonts are seen as traditional and reliable
- Script fonts are often viewed as creative and elegant
- Display fonts are fun, quirky, and expressive
There’s more to it than these basics, of course, but that just illustrates how important it is to educate yourself on the psychology of font before you make your decision. If you have a more traditional, non-quirky brand personality that is centered on offering basic but reliable products, you probably wouldn’t want to go with a loopy, odd display font, as it could send the wrong message.
Try Several Variations And Ask For Feedback
Our final tip is to try several different fonts on for size. There are thousands upon thousands of fonts out there, so it can be challenging to pick just one. Look for eight to ten options, and try them with the logo design to see how they work and whether they fit the brand.
Once you’ve narrowed it down even further, ask others for feedback. You can give them a short
questionnaire such as:
- Does the font match the perceived personality of the brand?
- Is it easy to read?
- Is it memorable?
- Does it look like any other competitor’s logos that you’ve seen?
- Could you describe the logo?
This feedback will help you to do another round of edits, and finally to decide on the single best font for your business logo design.
Author Bio
Natasha Sokolov is a freelance content writer who digs deep to bring out fresh aspects of the topic she writes about. She can write on any topic under the moon in particular niches such as branding, digital marketing, and online businesses.
