Ask any graphic designer, and they will readily tell you that choosing a font is not that easy – and when it involves a commercial project, it can be a love/hate process – simply choosing a font is not done, you will need to get yourself involved.
To choose a perfect font, the overall look and feel – it will need to be taken into consideration, and in doing so, it’s guaranteed that you will end up looking into much more details that you had not thought of it before.
And the good news is that many studies were done in the name of typography, and it’s effects studies to uncover some ideas on how to best choose a font for a specific type of design project.
Choosing a font doesn’t have to be daunting – you can take note of the following tips to question your choices of choosing a font for your design project.
Choosing fonts that match with the products
Did you know that consumers tend to go for those products which have fonts signaling what the product is all about?
In short, if a font is either pleasant or beautiful to look at, and add to that two features – activity, whether the font is active and lively and potency, which means the element of strength and toughness, during the study, it was found out that the font almost and always have a high rate of correlation with that of the brand.
Questions such as the following ones should come to your mind when choosing a font for your design project.
– Will the chosen font convey the strength of the product?
– Will the consumer choose the product if the chosen font is used?
Choosing fonts that are subtle, yet pleasant
Recently, a study was conducted on how the design of a font affects the consumer – and in the study, it was found out that the font directly evoked emotions (the good kind, obviously!) if the font was engaging and pleasing to look at.
Features such as naturalness, flourish, weight, elaboration – all of these played an important role in how a font is perceived by the consumer; and diving deeper, it was found out that the natural fonts have the highest effect in evoking a positive feeling in the consumers.
The element of ‘naturalness’ in a font means an organic, irregular and unplanned style that some fonts exclude – these fonts are devoid of the geometric and machine-made look, and hence, they appear subtle yet prominent.
Questions such as the following ones should come to your mind when choosing a font for your design project.
– Will the consumers accept the product if a natural-looking typeface is used?
– Will the chosen font for the product come off as subtle?
Choosing fonts that are clear and legible
Recent studies have suggested that no matter how creative the ad is, if the chosen font is not clear, then consumers will lose interest in the ad, and ultimately in the product itself.
Questions such as the following ones should come to your mind when choosing a font for your design project.
– Will the chosen typeface legible enough to be used in the ad? Is the height sufficient? And what about the kernel?
– What font size should be used in the ad? Should it be small or big? And if small, will serif typeface suit the ad?
Choosing the type of fonts
Have you noticed how the logos are designed – while some logos will have lowercase words, others will have uppercase words.
A study conducted in China found out that the logos that choose to use lowercase words, the consumers feel a certain closeness to them, while the logos that are designed with uppercase letters, they tend to convey strength, that could reinforce the authority of the brand.
Questions such as the following ones should come to your mind when choosing a font for your design project.
– Is the brand trying to portray warmth? Are they friendly? Are they trying to portray a sense of authority?
– Can we test uppercase letters with the logo? Will it resonate with the consumers?
Choosing fonts that convey meanings
Did you know that psychology can be applied to fonts?
A study conducted by the researchers at the NYU Department of Applied Psychology did just that – they found out that there are indeed certain fonts that convey meanings to the consumers.
Fonts such as Arial and Times New Roman were taken into consideration – while the readings that used the Arial font, they were perceived as less satirical, angrier and funnier than those readings that used the Times New Roman font.
Questions such as the following ones should come to your mind when choosing a font for your design project.
– By choosing the font, what the text is trying to convey?
– Do the font that I plan to use – will it go well with the text?
Choosing fonts that are perceived as comfortable
A study was carried out by M. Bar and M. Neta, who wondered – would people like the rounded fonts as compared to sharp and angled fonts?
To get to the point – they paired more than 100 pairs of objects with subjects, in which one set was set in Arial and the other was set in Arial Rounded MT. During the study, it was found out that the participants liked the curved patterns more than the sharp-edged counterparts.
Questions such as the following ones should come to your mind when choosing a font for your design project.
– Should I choose a round typeface or a sharp one?
– Will the consumers like the round version better than the sharp typeface?
Choosing either sans-serif or serif styled typefaces
When choosing a font for your design project, it’s up to you what type of font should you want to go for.
Studies found out that the two most-liked types of fonts – sans serif style and serif style, both are equally accepted by the consumers. While serif styles are perceived by consumers as gentle, emotional, rich, and charming, the sans serif styles are perceived as vital, fresh, smart and readable.
Questions such as the following ones should come to your mind when choosing a font for your design project.
– What type of font style should I choose for the design project?
– Should I choose a sans serif style? Or a serif style?
Choosing a font shouldn’t have to be hard – you only need to understand the implications of the fonts, and how they work – in time, you will develop a feel of which and what fonts work, and how they affect the voice and vision of the brand.