How To Choose the best Fonts for your Brand & Website
Fonts (aka. typography, lettering or typefaces) are essential to the personality and identity of your brand. It's one of those details that could have a major positive impact on your website and business branding.
It's wise to spend a little more time picking the right fonts for your brand and your website. As a hobby calligraphist, I can really appreciate elegant, handwritten typography (as you can see on my website).
In this blog post, I'll be exploring the 5 main font groups and their personalities, sharing my tips for choosing your final font styles, and telling you where to source amazing, unique fonts to make your website stand out!
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CONTENT:
Traditional Font Types for Websites
Modern Font Types for Websites
Elegant Script Font Types for Websites
Bold, Statement Font Types for Websites
Unique & Quirky Font Types for Websites
How to choose the Right Font for your Website?
Where to find unique fonts for your website?
1. Traditional Font Types for Websites
These will be the fonts that have been around since the dawn of the computer. They are usually Serif fonts - ie. the letters with the extra 'bits' at the end.
Since most people are very familiar with these classic font designs, they give off the impression of heritage, reliability, and trust.
Which is why you'll most commonly find this font in newspapers, books and magazines.
Brand Keywords: Traditional, Reliable, Respectable, Heritage.
Typeface Group: Serif
Examples: Times New Roman, Georgia
2. Modern Font Types for Websites
These designs tend to add a clean and progressive touch to your identity, making your brand appear more modern. It also feels more youthful, thus attracting 'young' ICAs.
If you want your website to give off a more contemporary feel, then consider using a San-Serif Font (the ones without any 'bits' at the end).
You will most commonly find this font youth-targeted ads, startups, and most modern businesses these days.
Brand Keywords: Modern, Contemporary, Minimalistic, Clean.
Typeface Group: Sans-Serif
Examples: Avenir, Raleway, Brandon Grotesque
3. Elegant Script Font Types for Websites
Script fonts bring so much personality and charm to your brand. These are handwritten-type font designs with lots of curves, which give the designs a romantic and elegant feel.
Tip: Don't overuse! Script fonts are best used scattered sparingly throughout your website. (eg. to sign off your name, page headings like ‘Wedding Photography’)
You will most commonly find this font in the Wedding Industry, Female Photographers and Artists.
Brand Keywords: Romance, Elegance, Beauty, Creativity, Feminine
Typeface Group: Script & Hand Lettering
Examples: Amalfi Coast, Allura
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4. Bold, Statement Font Types for Websites
If you want to make a statement or want to appear robust, this is the type of font you should use.
The boldness of the font designs give the design substance and give off the impression of strength. These fonts are usually very bold and have a blocky design.
Which is why you'll most commonly find this font used in fitness studios and male dominated businesses.
Brand Keywords: Strong, Stable, Versatile, Defined, Robust
Typeface Group: Slab Serif or Bold Serif or Bold San-Serif
Examples: Ariel Bold, Mont Bold
5. Unique & Quirky Font Types for Websites
Quirky typefaces are handy if you want to create a unique brand identity. It will require more design skills to pick out the right design since all of them are very unique!
These fonts do not come in any particular style. They can range from graffiti style, to curly handwriting, to futuristic designs.
Which is why it's most commonly used by designers, illustrators, artists and personal brands.
Brand Keywords: Friendly, Quirky, Youthful, Unique, Unconventional
Typeface Group: Display, Hand Lettering, Script
Examples: Lemon Tuesday, Forma
6. How to choose the Right Font for your Website?
Ok... I'm sorry to have to have to break it to you, but... it's not all about you. It's about your ICA (ideal client or customer avatar).
What do THEY resonate with? What personality or brand identity are THEY be drawn to? What font types would they LOVE and want to associate with?
If you ICA happens to have similar taste in style to yours, then that certainly makes choosing a lot easier! For example: I chose my fonts based on clients who also love modern, chic, elegant styles - which also happens to be the style I love! Win, Win!
The biggest mistake I tend to see is personal preference clashing with customer preference.
For example: I've seen female lawyers use very curly, handwritten fonts ... which unfortunately just makes the whole website look a bit tacky and very unprofessional. It doesn't represent their brand in a professional, legit way and it's hard to take them seriously - which repels their ICA.
However, those same fonts could be used for a hand-letterer and do a great job at portraying the brand and actually attract more of their ICA.
A few more questions to ask yourself before making your final decision:
Is the font readable?
Does this font support special characters (eg. ā ø ü ę ì) ?
Does it look good in different weight like bold and italics as well?
7. Where to find unique fonts for your website?
Try branching outside the realm of 'mediocre system fonts' and exploring the amazing and vast realm of unique typography out there!
Here are some of my favourite places to acquire fonts:
But I have to say Creative Market is hands down my ALL TIME favourite place for unique and special fonts! But there are so many out there!
What are some of your favourite font styles and where do you normally source your font styles from? Let me know in the comments below! Or come start a conversation with me here @arohavisuals!