How to Choose Fonts that Fit your Brand?

Fonts play a big role in creating a brand perception among customers. Selecting fonts that go with your brand can be a tedious task. How do you narrow down your choices and select fonts that are good for your brand? The following are some creative benchmarks you can apply to make your font choices:

Know What Your Customer Wants

Approach this like a date you are going to. You wouldn’t wear your night pajamas and flowery slippers to your date, would you? So, similarly know who your potential customers are, what kind of lifestyles do they lead and therefore what kind of font will appeal to them. At the same time, retain your brand’s personality through the fonts.

Beyond Serif and Sans-Serif

Times New Roman, Georgia, Freight Text, Garamond, Caluna are popular Serif fonts. They add edge and class to the brand. Helvetica, Verdana, Dejavu Pro, Avant Garde, Arial, and Optima are popular Sans-Serif fonts. Serif fonts are said to be easier to read as individual letters are more clearly lettered in comparison to sans-serif fonts. There is also decorative and script fonts that can add uniqueness to your brand. You can also combine fonts, to get a brand new font as a combination of all required font features. Which one would you go for?

The font must match the design and business purpose. Before you buy or download a font, list out the personality traits of your brand to make your search more concentrated. This way, you already have a fair idea of what your font choice will look like. Bold, serious, cheerful, robust or rebellious? Mirror your brand qualities on the fonts and you should have made a shortlist of your font selections.

Readability & Versatility Check

Apart from your brand design, your font must be clear and legible when you have to convey something of importance or otherwise. Check which font size fits and whether the font is web optimized. Also, check the spacing between two words, the lowercase, and uppercase heights. Sometimes a font can look less readable in italics. Also, try the “I and L” test, ensure that “i” and “l” in lowercase do not look identical.

Avoid Familiar Fonts

Your customers may look through your brand if the font is all too familiar. Look out for fonts that convey what you want to, yet are stylish in their own way. Try combinations of fonts in body text and bold, you never know what can surprise you. Sometimes an ordinary looking serif font lights up in bold. The key then is to experiment but try out fonts methodically.

We hope the suggestions shared in this article will help you select the right fonts for your brand. If you have any other suggestions with regard to font selection, do share!

Want More Money? Start Effective Icon Design for Better UI

Any website or mobile app icon design has to convey a specific purpose. Icons add aesthetics to the screen, help save on screen space. But primarily icon design have to aid your users, help in branding, drive user attention and response. The idea, from the graphic design aspect, is to keep it simple. Easier said than done you will say. Here are some key pointers to effective icon design for better UI:

Balanced Icon Design Detailing

Instant communication of an action, idea or object is the attribute of good icon design. Too much detailing can render an icon with no logical or meaningful connection. As a rule, opt for minimal detailing to clearly convey the mobile app icon design’s purpose.

When Google first adapted a simplistic grid icon on its homepage as a one-point access to all its Google apps, they received multiple help requests enquiring about the apps’ location. The users just couldn’t spot where the grid icon was on the page. Somehow the lack of detailing had ended up too elusive for the users. That is why, striking the right balance, trial and error are important steps too.

  

Out of the Box Design Tweaking

Unless the client had made clear specifications, go beyond standard design conventions, without compromising on usability and visual recognition. For example, see how the Pinterest icon gets away with an outrageous text font while combining two circular clean white, vibrant bold red combo diameters to convey its image-intrinsic brand. Sample how the iOS music app djay 2 uses a vinyl for an icon yet conveys a modern appeal.

Visual Perception Aspects

Closely consider the following factors while designing website and mobile app design icons. Know your target audience, right down to their age, cultural attributes, level of education and general development. Find out, in what environment will the product be used? What will be the expanse of the product’s local or global reach? How does the audience identify with graphics, what specific elements distract and engage them? These are all vital questions.

The Scalability Factor

Try out your icon design on the device or website in multiple sizes and settings. While designing, focus on a unique shape or quality that retains its effect in any size or scale. Check that the icon looks great with various background colors. Perceive how the design complements the UI.

Eye for Aesthetics  

You are aware that a set of icons and each individual icon in an app or website have to be aesthetically alike. But how do you ensure a pleasant subtle uniformity? Concentrate on little things, like the specific size of the square or rounded corners. An acute sense of style, lining and color textures helps immensely in this process.

We hope that these icon design tips provide you with a new perspective on designing icons for website and mobile apps and contribute to a better UI. Please do share your comments below.