“A recognizable graphic design element, often including a name, symbol or trademark, representing an organization or product” this is the standard definition of a “logo”. A logo in simpler terms is the combination of a visual, some text and an overall aesthetic. A logo accomplishes two basic tasks even before your customers interact with you. Number One, tell your customers the name of your business and Number Two, Create a visual representation of what your business is all about. The font used in the logo aids in creating a visual representation in a huge way and today we will be taking a look at some tips to help you in choosing the best fonts for your logo.
Essential Tips Choosing the Perfect Font for a Logo
1. Keep it Simple
If it’s bold it’ll hold, say the biggest tattoo artists of the world and the same hold true for Logos. Logos with Simple fonts are like timeless classics, you can see them for extremely long periods of times and still never get bored of them. A logo with a clean font is also easier to reproduce on multiple texture types and surfaces as well for ease of printing. So if you are planning on having some Mato & Hash Custom T-Shirts printed with your logo on, you want to make sure that it ends up looking just as you envisioned it. Do ensure though that your logo looks clean even when enlarged or it will end up looking ugly on banners and other large form marketing materials.
2. Make it easy to Read
Certain fonts are basically just eyesores, make sure you don’t pick one of those! Your font should be easy to read and even easier to remember, that is how you will make a long lasting impact.
3. Select Fonts that represent your brand identity
The font is what makes a logo memorable and identifiable, figure out what font suites the brand messaging of your individual company and once you find it stick to it, for eternity to come. Your font could be messy, chaotic, clean, breezy or bold, it really doesn’t matter, what matters is that you find a font that works for you.
The products and services you offer will also influence the type of font you use, for example, a millennial energy drink or fruit Juice Company will have a very airy breezy font for their marketing while a Law or a private investigation firm will have something that is bold and powerful for all of their brand communications. Figure out who your target is, what they like and what your business provides to them once you know this, find a font to match and double down on it!
4. Stick to One font (Two if you absolutely must)
Too many cooks spoil the broth, similarly, too many fonts spoil a great looking logo. Your best bet is to always stick to just one font per logo and two if you absolutely must, anything more than that will end up looking like a mush of unorganized chaos making your logo ugly. An ugly logo potentially generates distrust among potential customers and we certainly don’t want that to happen, do we?
If you notice, established brands tend to use a single logo throughout their brand messaging while smaller brands tend to gravitate towards having separate fonts for the logo and the slogan of the business.
5. Keep it Eternal
Back in the older days, fancy balloon animal like looking fonts was all the rage, do you see them around anywhere anymore? No. A logo has to stand the test of time and endure a long lifespan of several centuries in some cases and hence you should steer clear of any design “Fads” going around during the time you get yourself a nice logo.
Try to keep your logo minimal using fonts in logo that are not too overpowering or fancy. Always remember that you want your logo to stand out and not blend in with the crowd and hence while that new fancy design may look alluring now it may be your brands downfall maybe just in a year or two.
6. Give it some Space
The notes you don’t play are equally important as the ones you do, this is a famous proverb in the music industry and the same applies to logos. Allow me to explain, When choosing a font the space you leave between the characters and the overall design can make or break a logo. If you keep a lot of space it’ll make your logo good very airy and disconnected whereas leaving no space will make your logo look crammed and chaotic.
You need to decide the amount of space required based on the kind of product or service you offer and always remember, negative space is your friend, not your enemy.
7. Analyze your competition
This one is a no brainer, keep an eye out on what your competition is up to and maybe use that as a reference point to figure out your own brand identity. Do not imitate instead be inspired by the successful attempts by your competition.
So these are some of the most essential tips we have for you when selecting the font for your logo, do let us know below in the comments if you’ve seen someone make any kind of faux pas in the recent time when it comes to logo designing.
