Q: How important are fonts for brand identity?

Answer: The correct font is VERY important 

for the success of your branding strategy!

Typography is a science that is often overlooked in today’s fast-paced world of branding and marketing.

We spend a lot of time strategising an effective PR campaign or discussing the pros and cons of Facebook over Twitter
or searching image galleries for the right light and shade effect.

Yet, sat bang in the middle of every marketing campaign for the rest of eternity there could be some god-awful spider squat of a font and the designer will shy away from changing this fundamental element.
We at Pudding Creative understand this reticence. The art of THE FONT is a talent that should be revered. Its effect on a presentation is quite insightful – potentially transforming a brochure from being approachable and friendly to conventional or distant. And whilst the immediate visual affect may be overt, the lingering impression that the font leaves with potential clients can be totally subconscious.

Some typical emotional connections which a selection of the most commonly used fonts will evoke about you and your company:

Times :                       classical, trustworthy, reliable
Courier:                  artistic, retro, contemporary 
ARIAL :               modern traditional, reaction-less
Tahoma:              fresh, modern alternative to Arial
VERDANA (bold) :        confident and cosmopolitan

Any cynics of the power of the font should recall Ikea’s foray when they chose to adapt their company identity to bring it in-line with the fonts available in HTML. As Ikea’s website used the web-safe font Verdana, the executive boffins thought it best to adapt all print materials to match. This apparently small act of corporate standardisation caused a “fontroversy” that spread through the newspapers, radios and social media networks with such heart-felt horror that urged the New York Times to write “perhaps the biggest controversy to ever come out of Sweden”.

There was a time when small children learnt calligraphy at school. I was awarded a special italic fountain pen when I’d reached the heady heights of neat handwriting. But today, we are an IT-led generation and typing accuracy is more useful than arty letters. However, whilst most of our font choices from the toolbar of Microsoft Office is purely functional, we do still find ourselves becoming quite opinionated about whether it is too small (nobody likes to squint) or in CAPITALS (nobody likes to be shouted at) or just a very odd colour (there is a time and place for individuality and the office minutes is not one of them).

One of the most overwhelming examples of the effect that fonts have on corporate branding was when the London Underground rolled out their network of signs in “Johnston”. When Gerard Meynell was asked the meagre task of producing a few posters for the transport service in 1915 he had some rather ambitious plans to brand the whole of London. His choice of a “straightforward and manly” font was originally quashed by the powers that be but has since triumphed and it is now immediately recognisable worldwide.

And just in case anyone still thinks that the study of fonts gets you nowhere, let’s take a little inspiration from someone who has done quite well from humble beginnings in a calligraphy class;

“I learned about serif and san serif typefaces, about varying the amount of space between different letter combinations, about what makes great typography great. It was beautiful, historical, artistically subtle in a way that science can’t capture, and I found it fascinating”
 
Steve Jobs, Business magnate, designer of the first Macintosh computer, CEO of Apple, Co-founder of Pixar animation


Source: Just My Type, Simon Garfield