Branding Basics
Typography The Writing On The Wall
Type is the Visualization of Speech
As with color, there are layers of complexity to typography. Whether consciously or not, most people view grouped words in the same way they perceive visual art. The right set of fonts gives your content style and personality beyond the message being delivered. Misused fonts and mismatched font pairings will tell a story as well.
When it comes to branding, there's:
Who you are.
Who you think you are.
Who you want to be!
how others see you…
Typography can lead you down a fairly deep rabbit hole. If you’re one of our branding clients, you’ll have a much greater awareness of this subject by the time you’re presented with your brand style guide. In general, your typography should be legible in a wide range of sizes and versatile, with a suitable variety of weights and full list of characters. It should also be distinctive and should compliment your brand personality.
Some Terminology
Typography is the art of arranging printed letters and words in a way that is legible and visually appealing to the reader.
A typeface (type) or font family is a collection of unique characters, with certain shapes (glyphs) shared across the characters, forming patterns that are selected for style, legibility and readability.
Types are generally classified by the inclusion or exclusion of small projections at the beginning or end of the character strokes. Serif type has them, san serif doesn’t.
Font refers to the weights, widths and styles that make up the typeface.
Weight refers to the thickness of the character strokes (for example light, regular, bold).
Width describes how narrow or wide characters appear, ranging from condensed to expanded.
Glyph is the specific visual shape used to represent a character.
Kerning adjusts the spacing between specific pairs of letters to improve visual balance.
Tracking controls the overall spacing between letters across a word or block of text.
Leading refers to the vertical space between lines of text (line height).
Baseline is the invisible line on which most characters sit.
X-height is the height of lowercase letters, measured from the baseline to the top of the letter “x”.
Hierarchy describes the visual structure that guides readers through content using differences in size, weight and spacing.
Fallback fonts are alternative fonts defined in case the primary font fails to load.
Ligatures combine two or more letters into a single character to improve readability or aesthetics (such as fi or fl).
Styles
Serif typefaces include small finishing strokes at the ends of letters. These details help guide the eye across lines of text, which is why serif fonts have historically been common in books, newspapers and long-form reading. Many classic serif fonts fall into the transitional category, which balances traditional structure with improved readability. They are often associated with tradition, credibility and editorial design.
Sans Serif typefaces remove those finishing strokes, resulting in simpler letterforms. They tend to feel modern, clean and highly legible on screens, which is why they are widely used for websites, interfaces and contemporary branding.
Grotesque typefaces are one of the earliest forms of sans serif fonts. Compared to many modern sans serifs, they often have slightly irregular proportions and subtle quirks in their letterforms. Those imperfections can give grotesque fonts more personality and visual warmth, which is why they remain popular in branding and editorial design.
Slab Serif fonts are a subtype of serif characterized by thick, block-like serifs. They often feel bold, sturdy and confident, making them popular in headlines, logos and branding where a strong presence is needed.
Example: Rockwell
All characters in a monospace typeface have the same width, meaning letters like “i” and “w” occupy identical horizontal space. This uniform spacing makes monospace fonts especially useful in programming, terminal interfaces and tabular data where alignment matters. Because the spacing is mechanical rather than natural, monospace fonts are rarely used for body text in branding or marketing materials.
Script typefaces mimic formal cursive writing and often include flowing or connected letterforms. They are typically used to convey elegance, tradition or sophistication and are most effective in short phrases, logos or decorative elements.
Handwriting fonts are designed to resemble casual, natural writing with a pen, pencil or marker. They tend to feel more informal and playful than script fonts and can add personality or warmth to a design. Like script fonts, they should generally be used sparingly to maintain readability.
Display typefaces are designed for visual impact at large sizes. They often feature exaggerated proportions, decorative elements or unusual letterforms that help them stand out in headlines, logos and signage. Because of those stylistic details, display fonts are usually not suitable for body text.
Geometric typefaces are built from simple shapes such as circles, squares and triangles. Their structure gives them a clean, modern appearance that works well in contemporary branding and minimalist design.
Humanist typefaces are inspired by traditional handwriting and calligraphy. They tend to feel more organic and approachable than strictly geometric fonts, making them a common choice for body text in both print and digital design.
Static vs Variable Fonts
If you read about web typography today, you’ll probably hear that variable fonts are the future.
As with everything, there’s a “Yes, but…”
Traditional fonts are static. Each weight or style exists as its own file (regular, italic, bold, semibold, etc.). If a design uses several variations, the browser has to load several font files to make it happen. Variable fonts bundle those variations into one flexible file. Weight, width, slant and other attributes can be adjusted dynamically rather than locked into predefined styles.
That can reduce the number of font files a site loads and give designers more control over typography.
That’s a good thing, right?
Yes, but…
Static fonts have been around since the dawn of typography. The idea of discrete weights and styles goes back centuries. Each one is intentionally designed, refined and tuned by the type designer.
Because of that, static fonts render exactly as the designer intended, with multiple, carefully crafted weights. These are not simply thicker or thinner versions of the same shape. Designers frequently adjust spacing, stroke contrast and proportions so each weight feels balanced.
Variable fonts typically interpolate between a smaller number of master styles, often just roman and italic. That approach creates flexibility but the intermediate weights are mathematically generated rather than individually designed.
So the real difference isn’t that one format offers more options than the other. Variable fonts provide technical flexibility. Static fonts provide curated precision.
Free vs. Commercial Fonts
In general, most free fonts make a poor alternative to commercial fonts for use as a company brand.
There are a ton of free fonts available out there these days. Some are OK. Some are good. Many are terrible.
The good ones tend to get used. A lot…
The result is that people have gotten used to seeing the same, overused fonts on every website. This can “dilute” an otherwise distinctive brand.
Commercial fonts are created by professional typographers who understand good design, legibility and usability. This means they will tend to be more clear at a wider range of sizes and weights and better adjust to the various platforms, devices, screen sizes, aspect ratios and web browsers. Free font families can be limiting because they are often missing the full range of “tools” that can be expected in a quality commercial font family. That means designers will have to settle for using a limited set of weights and treatments or choose an alternate font, which breaks one of the few cardinal rules of branding: be consistent!
TL,DR: we recommend using at least 1 commercial font family for your brand.
How Much?
This was your next question, right?
Well, there are lots of options out there and the licensing can get complicated but, in our experience, you can expect to pay anywhere from $200 to $2000 or more for commercial typefaces. This may seem like a very wide range but there are multiple factors to consider.
You’ll probably need at least 2 licenses: desktop and web (there are others). Desktop licenses are usually good for 1-5 users, which is suitable for most of our clients. Web font licenses are usually structured based on the number of page views, domains or projects where the font will be used. They can be perpetual (one-time purchase) or an ongoing subscription (usually annual). We prefer a perpetual license but this is not always available.
Fonts can be purchased individually, as a set of multiple fonts (family) or as a set of multiple families (superfamily). We recommend including 2 families, one for body text and another for headlines, titles and callout/accent text. We don’t usually recommend working with more than 2 families as this can complicate things for designers working with the brand.
The body text family should be designed for legibility/readability. If purchasing individually, we recommend at least 4 styles (fonts) for body text: regular, regular italic, bold and bold italic. For headlines, titles and callout/accent text, we’ll likely recommend at least 2 styles designed for larger text sizes.
Hawaiian Language Typography
Proper use of the written Hawaiian language is an essential component of many local brands. The principal marks of distinction are the `okina diacritical mark (indicating a glottal stop) and the kahakō (a macron denoting a long vowel).
Note: The `okina is different than the apostrophe or quotes.
Many typefaces support Hawaiian language characters for the kahakō. To use these characters with the desktop fonts, each designated user will need to enable the Hawaiian keyboard which is available for Windows, Mac OS and Linux.
→ To type lower-case vowels with the kahakō (ā—ē—ī—ō—ū), enable the Hawaiian keyboard, then hold down the right ALT key while typing the appropriate letter.
→ To type upper-case vowels with the kahakō (Ā—Ē—Ī—Ō—Ū), enable the Hawaiian keyboard, then hold down the right ALT and Shift keys while typing the appropriate letter.
Caution: Even fonts that support Hawaiian don’t always include separate glyphs for the `okina.
When designing a new brand or doing a rebrand for Hawaiian organizations, we try to find fonts that include the `okina. However, when clients prefer to keep their fonts or have requested specific fonts that don’t include the `okina, we have modified the fonts from the original versions, usually by replacing the seldom-used grave symbol with either a custom glyph or by swapping it with another seldom-used symbol (such as the commaturn). Because the grave symbol is present on most keyboards, this provides convenient access to a distinct, unique character for the `okina while maintaining the cohesive styling of the typeface. If you are considering doing this, contact the foundry to make sure that modifying the fonts doesn’t violate your license.
Form Follows Function
Here are a few of the things we look for in a font family:
- Consistent styling across the entire set of characters and glyphs. It is this consistency that will make a font family distinct and distinction is what we want to create for your brand.
- A full range of weights (thicknesses) ranging from hairline/extra light to extra bold/black. It can be extremely limiting for designers to create marketing materials when the only options available are regular or bold.
- A large set of glyphs (characters) beyond the requisite 10 integers, 26 letters and handful of other high-use characters.
- True italics – many free fonts simply slant the roman characters and call it italic. The problem with this is that it can distort the characters, reducing legibility and detracting from the overall cohesiveness of the design. In a true italic font, each glyph is independently worked to ensure the characters fit into the font family while remaining legible and distinctive from the upright styling across an appropriate range of sizes and weights.
- Additional features that offer designers latitude when working with the brand. This includes things like small caps, ligatures, fractions and other stylistic options. Again, we’re looking for things to distinguish the brand.
This is not guesswork!
Our typography design process (typically undertaken as part of a branding or rebranding project) involves researching your organization and pouring through hundreds of typefaces to find the ideal font pairings that will work for you. Your brand style guide will include a detailed explanation of your font family, fonts, weights and styles, with usage guidelines.
Typography is just one piece of the branding pie. We take just as much care when developing all the rest of the audio-visual elements that define how customers will perceive your business.
