Typefaces say a lot about your brand, and it’s important to consider how you want them to be used for future marketing materials as well as in your identity. It’s generally accepted that you’ll need between two and three typefaces in your brand guidelines, and believe it or not there’s a science behind choosing them. The first two typefaces need to compliment one another. Using a serif and a sans serif is often a good starting point, but feel free to explore a script font too. Bear in mind though that this might be less legible at small sizes and should be reserved for headings etc.
Once you have chosen your typefaces, decide which will be used for titles and which will be used for body copy. It doesn’t really matter which way around you use them, so long as everything is readable. To ensure your titles stand out, try using a larger font size, or a contrasting weight, making sure it looks different to the body copy.
The same rules apply to your logo - if you have a strapline, make sure it is smaller than your company name. You can try different fonts within the company name, as long as they compliment one another.
A third typeface can be introduced as a highlighter, but needs to be used sparingly, and only when essential. If you use any more than three typefaces, you may struggle to make them all work together.
It’s important to think about your typography at all times, not just in your logo design, or copy heavy documents, but throughout your branding. These rules should be carried across all creative output.
When using the fonts you have established for your brand, take into consideration message hierarchy (the order of importance given to each element of copy). Which parts do you want to stand out the most? Where do you want to draw the viewers eyes to first and what information do you want them to most remember?
Type can be a great way to get creative, particularly for event titles. If you’re promoting any kind of specific event, you can choose display fonts that best represent the theme.
Serifs are said to be reliable, impressive, respectable, authoritative and traditional. Where as sans serifs are universal, clean, simple, contemporary and stable. A slab serif is a good combination of the two, modern, stable, bold and strong. Script fonts are considered more feminine, elegant, friendly, intriguing and creative. Display fonts have a variety of connotations depending on the style, but are generally considered to be more playful and daring.