How to Choose the Right Font for Your Logo

When creating a unique logo for your business, font choice is everything. Because fonts help us to not only read a word, but also feel the meaning behind that word. There are so many different styles of fonts and typography design that evoke different feelings and emotions. They can feel friendly or bold, feminine or masculine, traditional or modern… the possibilities are endless!

With so many options, it’s extremely important that you make the right choice for your business. So we’ve put together a quick guide that will help you choose fonts that align with your brand personality and will connect with your target customers!

First – What do you need to look for in a font?

The best brands are strategic. Rather than solely aiming to be trendy, they’ve made strategic design decisions that will set them apart from competitors and tell their unique brand story. That’s the same mindset that you should have when choosing a font for your logo (or when making any decision for your brand)! Here are a few key things that you want to keep in mind:

Timeless, not trendy.
Although trends have become a popular marketing tool on social media, it’s not very reliable for brand building. Because the very nature of trends is that they fade! Some last a few weeks, some last a few years. But ultimately, most trends go out of style or become overused quickly. And that’s not what you want for your business. Instead, you want to choose branding elements that will last and grow with you as your business expands.
Differentiates you from you competitors.
A key factor in any business’ success is standing out from their competitors, right? So an exercise that we always do with clients is to go through any other brands in their industry that they consider to be competition and see if there are any common themes or trends across their branding. Is everyone using a similar style of logo, packaging or color palette? These are important observations to make so that you can recognize where things have been overdone and how you could intentionally do things differently to better stand out.
Speaks to your target customer.
You’ve likely done a lot of thinking about who your target customer is – their age, occupation, struggles, and needs. But it’s also important to consider what design and branding styles they are naturally more drawn to! What products are do they gravitate towards in the store? Are they more friendly and playful? Or more sophisticated and refined? This is something that guide not only your font choices, but other brand choices like colors, packaging, imagery, etc.
Communicates your personality + values.
This is last and arguably most important thing to prioritize because it’s what’s going to really help you connect with your target customer and convey what you want to be known for as a brand. If you haven’t already established the values that drive your brand, take some time to figure that out! Whether you want to be known for authenticity, sustainability, innovation, kindness, etc – you can use those characteristics as guides to help you choose branding elements that will help you communicate them. (Which we’ll walk you through next!)

How do you choose a logo font that aligns with your brand goals?

Have you ever stopped to notice the different styles of fonts that you see every single day? The font on your favorite skincare or beauty product is likely different from the one on your energy drink. Or how the font on signage for a coffee shop is different from a pharmacy. Why is that?? Because the design of a font or typeface can communicate different ideas, emotions and meanings. And therefore, drastically change the assumptions that we make about the product or business that it is being used for! And if you look around, you might notice which font styles are often used to communicate certain things. Here are a few examples of what fonts styles you might want to use to convey the type of brand that you want to be seen as.

Luxury / Elevated / High-End

If you want your business to be seen as luxurious and refined, these might be good font choices for you. Notice how each of these fonts has both thick and thin lines in their letters – this is a detail that helps give off this elevated feeling.

Confident / Strong / Ambitious

To convey confidence, you might choose a font that has a very bold, heavy weight. We naturally interpret bolder weights to mean that something is stronger and more intense, right? You could also choose a font that is very tall and skinny, which illustrates the idea of standing up tall and confident.

Kind / Friendly / Welcoming

If kindness is a big value for your business, it might make sense to go with a font that has soft curves or rounded edges. This small detail can help make a logo instantly feel more friendly and approachable. You also might want to try using all lowercase letters, which also helps communicate a more casual + welcoming personality.⁠

Edgy / Unique / Innovative

To add some edginess to your brand, you can use a font that incorporates sharp serifs and angles in its letters. Hard lines and angles are an easy way to visually communicate that your brand or product goes against the status quo.

So what ideas or themes do you want your logo to communicate? We hope that these examples have shifted your perspective on the power of typography design in branding and how it can help you create a meaningful identity for your business! If you want more font and logo design inspiration, follow us on Pinterest or check out our other blog post featuring some of our favorite fonts.

And if you’re tired of trying to DIY your branding, we'd love to help you build a the brand of your dreams! Head to our custom design services page to learn more about the many ways that we can work together.