Fonts have many functionalities in the marketing world – the two most important ones being legibility and brand awareness. Your font’s main job is to deliver your clever messaging across to your audience in the most efficient way possible. Although to most people choosing fonts is not a big deal, there are people who have dedicated their lives to learning about how characters make us perceive information in ways that elicits different emotions based on their shape.
Types of Font
Serif
Serif fonts have little serifs at the end of each character adding little decorations to an otherwise sans serif font. These are just small extensions that carry a heavy weight on their shoulders. Thanks to these little additions the font itself gets a more majestic feel. It is the type of a font you would see being used to embellish traditions or express authority, it is the perfect representation of quality and class. That is not to say that any other font is not good quality. What those characteristics express is how this typeface has been used for centuries and thanks to that it has been appointed this role.
Sans Serif
Sans Serif fonts are those that you will see more often than not – they are everywhere. With their simplicity and minimalism, they have become the fonts of social media and all digital print. They are simply typefaces without ‘serifs’ as the name suggests, making them a simpler form. Thanks to that they are thought to be more legible in a large body of text and over time they have become our go-to. There is a long-standing debate about which font type is factually more legible, but it seems to go back to personal preference and the fonts characteristics.
First Impressions Matter
As much as the quality of your content is important to your audience, your message won’t be perceived well if this is presented in a neon font on a black background reminiscing blogs from the 2000s. In today’s dense market you only have so much time to attract someone’s attention. The last thing you would want is to lose that person’s attention for good. First impressions matter and you want your customer to subconsciously be able to label brand according to it is messaging; be it a creative fun curly font, professional and casual sans serif or elegant and traditional serif.
On the contrary, a correctly chosen font should never be noticed. If your chosen font is taking away the spotlight from your message it shows that it wasn’t a well-chosen tool to begin with. The most important thing is that it fits your message, your ethos, and your brand guidelines.