Why Typography is Important in Branding and How to Get it Right in 2023

Brands spend a lot of time and effort to establish a style guide around typography, and there is a vital reason. No, it’s not just about consistency or what the brand is trying to say. But, it’s about how the brand says it. The way the letters are drawn and shaped and the words are presented should communicate the exact message (beyond the meaning of the words that letters spell) for the audience who are subject to emotive conjugation.

When looking at the “image” of the words presented, most people apprehend the emotion, attitude, and meaning of a text from its face value. And this makes typography one of the most critical tools of design and marketing when it comes to branding as it works silently for the brand. It creates deeper brand meaning and influences consumer emotions. It helps customers to comprehend your visuals and understand the brand message that you want to convey to them.

In this blog post, we will find out why typography matters so much for your branding and how you can choose the right typography for your brand. We will also highlight some of the best typography trends in 2023 that you may find some inspiration from and get your fonts to portray your brand in the most effective way!

The Importance of Typography for Your Brand

Typography constitutes quite a bigger part of your visual branding than you might identify, and it’s very important that you consider this when working on your brand.

• Typography Sets the Mood

Just like pictures and images, fonts also have a direct as well as indirect impact on the moods of individuals. A typeface has the ability to improve the theme, create emotions and interest, deliver trust, and associate a personality. Note that all these factors are critical for any successful design project.

For example, when we find a paragraph written in a traditional or modern font that is easy to read, it provides a sense of calm and offers a better mood. On the other hand, our moods ruin when we try to read a paragraph that is presented in a crazy, illegible font. Simultaneously, we immediately intuit that a brand has a young, fun, and whimsical tone when we look at its text written in Comic Sans whereas reading a paragraph in Times New Roman makes us instantly think that it is something classic or serious.

So, the readers or audiences can associate many implications with the typeface you use for your brand. And this is the reason there are several kinds and classifications of typefaces. It’s extremely important that you choose the fonts wisely as they offer a vastly different effect or mood.

• Typography Visually Represents Your Brand Message

Since typography can set different moods, it can represent the tone and values of your brand in a non-verbal form. Just like the colour palette, your brand typography is key to the message being delivered to its customers and prospects. It is extremely powerful and a vital asset for a brand to stand out as it enables the brand to use a distinct voice as well as expression in its visual communication.

• Typography Affects Customer Experiences

Whether the audience is viewing your website, your social media pages, advertisements on various visual platforms, or simply having a look at the name of your brand, they are experiencing your brand through words or text. It’s a visual experience for them and it has to be memorable. Branding is the experience that prospects have with your business and to create a positive impression for your brand, it is important you ensure a positive and notable experience that’s worth remembering.

Let’s get a better understanding with a simple everyday example. When we visit a business website and experience difficulty in reading a text that is too small or one that creates a lot of strain on the eyes because of high or low contrast, it leads to bad experiences and produces negative connotations for the business. So, even small and seemingly unimportant typographic mistakes can affect customer experiences and turn them off.

• Typography Impacts Brand Personality and Identity

Your brand typography is an essential part of your visual identity as we mentioned already, and it is also responsible for how your audience perceives, feels, and remembers the brand. For example, when you think about Procter & Gamble, you can instantly identify the fonts and typography without even seeing the name of the organization. Larger brands sincerely focus on their typography and remain consistent over the years across all of their branding.

Certain details within letterforms provide great opportunities to convey the personality of your brand. Some creative tweaks and experimentation with different font colours and weights as necessary can produce an extensive range of expressions using the same typeface. If the style used by your brand has enough uniqueness, the typeface alone can build recognition.

So, let’s get this straight to your mind – fonts have personalities, and there’s a lot more than what meets the eye. They are the first impression for your prospects, so making the right font choice is crucially important to deliver brand identity correctly.

To learn and understand more about the right typography for your brand, let’s explore font psychology to understand why it matters in your branding.

What You Need to Know About Font Psychology

As graphic, web, and UX/UI designers, you should always focus first on how the audience will perceive and comprehend your visual communication. The shapes, space, lines, colours, and even textures that you use in your design have the ability to speak differently and evoke various perceptions and emotions in your audience’s minds.

Fonts play a specifically critical role in leaving a good or bad impression of your brand in a reader’s mind even when they don’t know anything about the brand and/or what it offers. For example, for an individual, a font like Curlz MT might seem improper when a corporate brand uses it. However, this distaste doesn’t arise in the same individual when the corporate brand uses a font like Bodoni for its visual communication instead of Curlz MT. Bodoni, for instance, is capable in this case to build more trust, relatability, and confidence towards the corporate brand persona.

This is what font psychology is about. Every font has a distinct identity and font psychology associates a particular font style with the thought process and emotions of the audience, thereby defining the pivotal importance of typography in branding.

Tips to Choose the Right Fonts

According to the Gestalt Theory, the human mind perceives visuals as a whole before comprehending the components individually. There are six principles that explain the phenomena, such as closure, similarity, proximity, continuation, figure, and symmetry. This means each of your design elements should complement each other to successfully create a good impression in your audience’s mind. And when it comes to typography, it is not only about choosing a specific font style but also arranging all typographic elements correctly in the visual arrangement, spacing, sizing, colour contrast, and overall design.

For example, when we look at a billboard, poster, graphics, and company logo, all the design elements such as the colour, shapes, lines, space, texture, etc. complement each other in an appealing way. However, if the typography is mismatched with the design, it makes us cringe easily as it ruins the purpose of the text, negatively impacts the brand identity, and immediately fails to grow any interest in the brand, its products, and services.

Now that you have learned about font psychology and the importance of typography for your brand, let’s discuss some font selections to help you find an appropriate font style that matches your brand’s personality.

1. Serif Fonts

This traditional font with a small decorative flick or taper at the top and bottom of the letter’s stem is perfect for brands that have a formal tone in their design. Serif fonts are popular among brands that associate a professional image with their identity and are commonly used by financial institutions, law firms, newspapers, editorial magazines, schools, and jewellery lines. Good at evoking certain emotions such as formality, supremacy, reliability, and trust, you have a wide range of choices for serif font styles like Times New Roman, EB Garamond, Baskerville, Courier New, Georgia, and Playfair Display.

Consumers are familiar with serif fonts and can easily relate to the feeling of heritage, loyalty, and sophistication that they provoke with the traditional look in any design, ranging from marketing brochures to logos and business cards. This makes serif fonts a great choice for traditional businesses and formal corporate-leaning designs.

2. Sans Serif Fonts

This clean, readable, and more modern style without the additional decorative elements like Serif fonts is a popular choice among brands that use a modern, trustworthy, innovative, and minimalist look for their image. Top-notch corporations such as Google, Netflix, Spotify, and Dolce & Gabbana use Sans Serif fonts for their branding. Some of the most commonly used sans serif fonts include Helvetica, Calibri, Futura, Arial, Open Sans, Montserrat, Lato, and Proxima Nova.

If your brand embraces modern sophistication over tradition and formality, sans serif fonts can be a go-to choice. They work well for establishing a more youthful, creative, approachable, accessible, playful, and cutting-edge image because of their simplicity.

3. Slab Serif Fonts

Perfect to display dramatic tones that visually scream at the audience to capture attention, slab serif fonts can be popularly seen on book covers, advertisements, headlines, posters, and logos. These fonts are similar to serif fonts but larger in size, bolder, and blockier than them. Here the serif is squared off to create a sturdy, slab-like appearance to do away with the more refined look.

Some of the most popular slab serif typefaces include Rockwell, Memphis, Arvo, Clarendon, and Serifa. Major companies like Honda, Sony, and Volvo use slab serif fonts. Some of the most usable slab serif fonts today are Sanchez, Schwager, Karnak Pro, Saxophone, Kettering 105, Kettering 205, Trivia Slab, Madawaska, Cassia, Sketch Block, Brix Slab, Shelton Slab, Posterizer KG, Bootstrap, and Oklahoma.

4. Script Fonts

Script fonts are a broad style referring to any typeface that is created to look like it’s hand-drawn. It captures the essence of traditional cursive handwriting and calligraphy that are done with a brush, pen, or marker. It adds a personal touch and lots of detail to the design with its decorative nature. It is more apt to make a statement instead of the set text.

Script fonts help make your design elegant and traditional yet very playful and happy. Based on your brand tone, you can pair script fonts with a wide range of other font styles to create different moods. These fonts are popular with branding, logotypes, poster design, and stationery. The most commonly seen script fonts are used by big brands like Coca-Cola, Barbie, Pinterest, and Kellogg’s. Some of the popular script fonts include Amarone, Amanda Black, Bayamo, Nature Beauty, Wedding Day, Liesel, Geraldine, and Air Travelers.

5. Handwritten Fonts

If you want an informal, unconventional yet fun look for your brand, handwritten fonts can be a great alternative to serif fonts. It is a broad category like script fonts with various styles reflecting the subtle differences and variations found in human handwriting. Precision differentiates handwritten and script fonts, where the former imitates the penmanship that a person would use in a letter while the latter is more decorative and calligraphic in nature.

Handwritten fonts are now quite popular in banners, social media posts, logos, book covers, as well as t-shirt designs. Commonly used examples are Amatic SC, Cavolini, Permanent Marker, ITC Zemke Hand, Shoreline, and FF Mr K.

Remember, using the right font is significant to make sure that your brand sends the right message to your audience.

Typography Trends You Need to Watch Out For in 2023

This art of organizing or arranging text has evolved over the years. Previously, the most significant factor considered was readability, but today typography has become mostly about innovative fonts that tell a story, effectively attract viewers, connect them to the brand, and provoke them to explore what the brand is offering.

In the previous year, typography trends were majorly influenced by a general mood of renewal to sail through the repositioning efforts by brands in the post-pandemic world. Design and typography were playing a key role in the brands’ social media and marketing strategies to revive the trust and loyalty of their customers. And notably, the typography styles trending in 2022 were soothing, calm, serene, and friendly just as it was necessary.

However, 2023 is full of eclectic offerings across product branding, social media, streaming, and cinema, enabling designers to freely experiment with different typography and typefaces. This year popular culture has emerged as more inclusive, wide-ranging, and diverse, and the digital marketplace is more saturated than before, following which a much broader, bolder, and more individualistic range of fonts are being used across the web, print, branding, and TV.

In this section, we have rounded up some of the most popular trending typefaces and fonts for 2023 that are making a big impact in web design, graphic design, and UX/UI design. Check them out when planning your brand typography in 2023 to draw user attention and carve out a niche.

Retro Condensed

One of the biggest typography trends in 2023, condensed typefaces are great to create an impressive impact in a small space. High-impact condensed styles with a vintage-inspired soul from the 70s will be a huge hit whether you go for more organic and rounded or strong and cinematic. With subtle quirks and organic edges, the Retro Condensed fonts soften the harsh style from an older decade.

Sans Serif Goofy

This trend is ideal for designs and brands that are informal and playful. It is a bit cartoon-inspired but definitely not childlike. These fun fonts can instantly uplift the mood and this feature makes it ideal for 2023 – a year that’s all about being optimistic. Some sans serif goofy font inspiration should include the Olive display typeface, Gersy display, Hoglar, Belgro, and Contructio Grotesk sans serif typeface.

Subtle Sci-Fi

It is a great time to incorporate a little space spark into your designs since a lot of sci-fi action is coming on cinema screens and streaming platforms in 2023. This can be a good take for tech businesses that want to build recognition for being novel and forward-thinkers.  For a cutting-edge font choice, you can try MBF Advanium or Estero, while FF DIN will still work if you want to keep it traditional. Fonts like Futurina and Equinox will also be apt choices for cutting-edge website designs and corporate branding projects.

Classic Modernism

Classic modernist typefaces are meant to stay and will never become outdated. They are versatile and effortlessly stylish and will never let you down. Classic styles like a Swiss-style sans serif are being loved by designers in 2023 and you can find Neue Haas Grotesque, Avant Garde Gothic, or Univers used by various brands across their body text or display headlines. You may consider some contemporary takes on these classic modernist fonts such as Avalon display font, Neuvetica, Physis neo-grotesk typeface, CA Saygon, or Univa Nova for your project.

80s Editorial

Perhaps a little surprising, but the more extroverted characteristic of the early 1980s is having a moment in 2023. Typesetters in the 1980s favoured tall, narrow serifs, and taking inspiration from them, designers are bringing back vintage narrow serifs in their designs. These fonts have a timeless appeal and manage to surprise modern viewers with an elegant sense of personality while keeping the designs classic and classy. You can find many magazines today that are going digital-first post-COVID-19 pandemic using curvy editorial styles like Mullingar with contemporary design elements. This trend pays tribute to the golden age of print and fosters familiarity on digital screens.

To bring innovative touches, the fonts are combined with neon palettes with retro-styled photography to create a modern appeal for editorial designs, websites, and social media. Some of the fonts you can take inspiration from include Noorge Karlos, Butter Mint, Loistave, and Grischel Condensed.

Superhero-Inspired

While 2023 will bring a lot of sci-fi action movies and web series for us, the year is also set to offer a stellar cinematic mood with numerous action-hero blockbusters. Note the high-octane energy to hit the cinema screens with The Marvels, and new instalments of the Mission: Impossible and Guardians of the Galaxy franchises. So, there is a good scope for designers to bring a sense of pulp fiction optimism with superhero-inspired fonts to their designs. Metallic textures, retro style, and eye-popping 3D styling are some of the characters that you can consider for designs and projects that need an instant energy and action element. Some fonts to note in this trend are Invisible display, Gunterz action typeface, Action Hero 80s poster font, ISC Jhoaned display font, CA Kometo comic book font, and Kontesa display typeface.

Bright Red Colour

While fonts are mostly rendered in shades of black or white, bright red has become a trending choice for several typographic compositions this year, especially for designs that feature minimalist, retro cartoons. It emphasizes importance since the red colour inherently associates with something significant. If we go by the derivative dictionary term, “red-letter”, it is supposed to be used sparingly. But in modern minimalist designs, we are seeing the red colour all over in fonts. The trend pairs the energy of the red colour with light-hearted characters without overwhelming the viewers. The brighter reds soften the darkness of the printed black and channel the energy toward positivity, joy, and excitement when used in comic strips.

Conclusion

Designers are working with more freedom and are on an experimental spree this year. We are already seeing a lot of new things in typography and only expect to see a lot more as the year matures. It’s going to be a cinematic year with cinemas and digital streaming platforms pulling in more and more viewers. So, the typography trends in 2023 are set to reflect a diversity of eras and themes. In the middle of this influx of these innovative type styles, we are also seeing designers return to retro fonts and classic typography with contemporary tweaks.

These trending typefaces and fonts are versatile and you can use them across a wide variety of design projects from logos to websites, magazines to social media posts, posters to other marketing collaterals.

However, always remember that typography is a lot more than just combining popular fonts with complementary colours. It is not a one-size-fits-all solution, so every brand should plan it right and have the correct strategy to make all the difference.