Fonts in Action - 2021

It doesn’t matter if the advertising you’re creating is for print, interactive, email or social media, the first rule of advertising typography is “stick to your brand.” Advertising’s goal is selling products and services, but it’s also about building and maintaining a brand – and that includes the typeface your client uses as its branding font. If, however, your client’s primary branding typeface is a neutral design like Helvetica® Now or Macklin™, and if there isn’t already a companion branding typeface, you might want to suggest the addition of a second family to the mix that has a more vibrant persona. Just be sure that the new design pairs well with the primary typeface – and that it doesn’t have too much personality. Typefaces that are highly distinctive generally don’t age well. Browse through our selection for inspiration from what our foundry partners are doing within Advertising.

When choosing typefaces for brand design, think big. Look to families with several weights, variations and proportions. You may only need a handful of fonts, at first, but rest-assured situations will arise that call for additional weights, condensed and even expanded designs. There are also many super families that have both serif and sans serif branches on the family tree. Some benefit from even more variations. These ensure perfect pairing when used together. Think typefaces like Aptifer® Slab & Aptifer Sans, Frutiger® Serif & Neue Frutiger, ITC Legacy® Serif, ITC Legacy Square Serif and ITC Legacy Sans, FF Meta® Serif & FF Meta, Slate™ and Egyptian Slate, ITC Stone® Serif, ITC Stone Sans, ITC Stone Humanist and ITC Stone Informal. Browse through our selection for inspiration from what our foundry partners are doing within Branding.

The best packaging stands out and fits in. Whether you’re designing packaging for a boutique line of soap, floor polish or landscape staples, you’ll want to pick typefaces that get noticed. Packaging is, after all, a form of advertising and branding. But getting noticed is only half of the goal. You also want to make it easy for purchasers to learn about your product: how to use it, what’s contained in the box, bottle, etc. For this, you’ll need highly legible and easy to read fonts. “Less is more” is also a good guideline to follow. It may be tempting to include a lot of fonts in packaging design, but this “circus poster” form of typography will almost assuredly create a cluttered and confusing design – especially on the relatively small canvases that packaging provides.

Many graphic communicators think typography is about fonts. Fonts are clearly important – but there is much more. Good typography invites readership through properly placed headlines and subheads; facilitates content flow with appropriate typeface choice, even typographic color and easy to read columns. It makes a message memorable through clear hierarchy and scanability; and builds brand with consistent typeface choice and arrangement. The most common typographic errors are those of fashion. Typeface choice, size and arrangement based on what is chic is very often not only out of style, but also inappropriate for the message, situation or reader. In most textual communication, classic typefaces and typographic orchestration are the best choice. It’s why they’re classic.

Publication design, be it for books, periodicals or web pages, has two basic requirements. It needs to be inviting and easy to read. Choose the best typefaces to usher readers into the accompanying text copy without distracting from it. These typefaces can either complement or contrast with the text copy. A dramatic change in typeface will create the most emphasis, while the simplest – and most reliable – complementary choice is to use a bold weight of the typeface used in the text copy.

Before there was social media, there was social printing. This included things like stationery, business cards, invitations, greeting cards, postcards and even more commercial examples like store bags and menus. In some instances, it could be classified as personal branding. While many of these applications have evolved into digital statements and hardcopy versions are flirting with endangered species lists, people still enjoy receiving and holding the print varieties. Be it, hardcopy or digital, there are two parts to most social communication: the brand and the informational copy. The brand can be the person, company or product’s name. The informational copy is what you want to tell the reader about the brand. The brand can be set in scripts, fanciful display faces or fonts that evoke a time or place. The informational copy should be set in typefaces that are legible and easy to read.

Over the last few years, fashion magazines have been moving away from traditional scripts and Didones, and are using more exciting, inventive typefaces. The simplicity of a sans serif design along with an elegant serif typeface can create a modern – yet timeless look. But fashion typography is not limited to publication design and magazine advertising. It can be as simple as a hang tag or as complicated as a seasonal catalog. It can also be as small as a garment label or as large as graphic hoodie. Choose fonts for these applications as you would for their non-fashion counterparts.

No matter how beautiful your interactive designs or how clear the navigation, without typographically engaging textual content, users will not linger on your site. To get the most productive user experience, you’ll need to set textual content in fonts that are legible in an on-screen environment, and provide readers with copy that is easy to read.

Fonts for children’s products and services (clothing, books, toys, activities, packaging, foods, day care centers, etc.) should have fun in the neighborhood – the font neighborhood. Contextual type should be treated with the same respect as in any copy that is meant to be read. You can, however, lean toward fonts with an approachable and friendly mien. If the copy is meant to be read by children, confine your search to typefaces with simple, generous letter shapes, and avoid fonts with non-traditional letterforms. Typefaces with large x-heights are generally easier to read than those with modest x-heights. This is especially true for children.