How to Choose the Right Font for Your Marketing Materials

Typography is a vast field. There are never-ending lists of fonts available to marketing professionals today. Selecting the right typeface for your project could be a headache. We will provide the top three recommendations for picking the right font for you, which can help your marketing piece stand out against the competition. The right font has a power to capture attention, reinforce your brand message and even create emotional response. MDD Printing Typeface  

Pairing

To pair typefaces right, just like with clothing, you have to know different styles in order to match them together. There are six most prominent type families: Humanist, Geometric, Old Style, Transitional, Modern, and Slab Serif.

Geometric Fonts such as Helvetica, Futura, Akzidenz Grotesk, and Gotham are clear, objective, modern and most importantly universal. Because of its universal appeal, it is frequently used by airports and subways (New York’s subway signs are written in Helvetica). If there are any drawbacks to geometric fonts, it is that they are too common and a little impersonal. You can recognize a geometric font by its minimalist look. Screen Shot 2014-08-28 at 10.23.29 AM

 Sans serif developed in 1957 by Max Miedinger with Eduard Hoffman

Humanist Fonts such as Myriad, Verdana and Gill Sans resemble handwriting. They are still modern but give a more personal empathetic look. For that reason they should be used carefully, because choosing it for the wrong content could come out as insincere. Screen Shot 2014-08-28 at 10.11.45 AM

Sans serif designed by Matthew Carter in 1996 for Microsoft Corporation

Old Style Fonts such as Garamond, Jenson and Bembo are the century old typefaces. They have little contrast in their strokes because the technology wasn’t advanced enough to do that. Of course, these fonts are classic and traditional which could be both an advantage and a disadvantage. Screen Shot 2014-08-28 at 10.12.31 AM

Serif by Claude Garamond and later by Jean Jannon in 17th century

Transitional Fonts such as Times New Roman and Baskerville are just that – transitional, they combine elements of old and modern styles. Some might say that they lack character because they are neither here nor there, but I think they are classic and stylish at the same time. Screen Shot 2014-08-28 at 10.09.48 AM

Serif designed by John Baskerville in 1757

Modern Fonts such as Bodoni and Didot have high contrast of thick and thin in their strokes. Just as the name suggests, they have a modern dynamic look. Screen Shot 2014-08-28 at 10.11.00 AM

Serif designed by Didot family in the early 1800s

Before talking about the Slab Serif family, we should define serif and sans serif. Serif fonts have small “feet” (serifs) on the edges of the letters. They are typically easier to read and give a classic look to a font. Sans serifs don’t have small “feet” and give a more modern feel. Sans serifs are typically found in geometric family of fonts.

Slab Serif Fonts such as Rockwell and Courier have both serifs and geometric strokes. They have an urban trendy look. I think their strange appearance makes them very interesting. Screen Shot 2014-08-28 at 10.10.27 AM

Monospaced slab serif from 1955 by Howard "Bud" Kettler

Now, that we have established the different styles, we can mix and match. If you chose to go with different fonts for your headline and body, you should contrast and choose from different families, but not centuries apart which could easily distract your reader.  A good combination would be Slab Serif/Modern for headline, Geometric for body, Old Style for headline, and Transitional for body.

Readability and Size

Pay attention to line height and paragraph spacing. The space between lines is called leading and should be at least the point size of type. Most digital designers choose leading size of at least 150 percent of the text size. MDD leading

Design for Different Devices

Check if your devices deliver typography you chose. Your message must be consistent among all the platforms.

Do you have questions regarding your digital printing needs?  If so, please contact us for more information at [email protected] or 646-507-5280.  Connect with us on Facebook and Twitter and send us your suggestions, thoughts or questions.

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