How To Choose A Font For Your Logo

Designing a logo is a daunting task and how you choose and use a font is a small but critical part of the process. Despite the many free logo makers available online and the number of graphic design and printing companies offering to do the hard work for you, it's still largely up to you to come up with the theme, style and purpose that will make your logo effective. Here are some important considerations to guide you on your way.

Will Your Logo Be Type-Only?

The simplest logos are typography alone. As the size and shape of fonts can resonate with different strengths and ways of thinking, you can start by summing up the message of your business and then seek out advice as to which font matches this most closely.

Will It Be Legible?

Your logo has to look great at all sizes; everything from a 60" internet TV to a 4" smartphone screen. It's pointless laboring over an amazing logo if it looks like an undecipherable mark when you look at it on a smartphone. When you are narrowing down the font you want to use on your computer screen then experiment with different sizes. A more elaborate font might be illegible in some areas when shrunk to 100 pixels.

How Many Fonts Should You Use?

There is no rule about this, but any more than two fonts will make your logo look quite messy. It is important that the font use decide you use actually conveys an essence of what your company is about and what your brand stands for. If you feel that you need to infer more than two ideas through print then consider using the graphic to do some of the work for you.

Use Negative Space Effectively

It's easy to think of the FedEx logo as a great example of how positioning fonts can bring out hidden meaning in the space between the letters. You can see the arrow between the 'E' and 'X' in FedEx and all that this conveys about progress, direction and movement without using anything more than a font. While experimenting, remember to check whether it still works at all sizes. If your company sells wrenches, for example, you might choose a blocky font that makes the space between the c and h look like part of a wrench. This may be too obscure to be noticeable when you logo is viewed on a small screen or in newspaper print.

Should You Adapt Or Create a Font?

You can either create your own custom typeface or adapt an existing one. If the words in your logo are unusual then a simple existing typeface can easily be picked out of a free online logo database. Even a free online logo maker will have fonts that you can experiment with. You might light to consider extending parts of letters or omitting other parts so that your logo takes on new meaning just through the font. A graphic design firm will be able to help you create your own custom typeface if your logo words are more common and easier to recognize.

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