by D. Sproul | December 15th, 2009
It can sometimes be hard to choose a typeface that fits the character of your sign, poster, client, etc. Each font has a different look and feel: formal to casual, fun, friendly, historical (1950′s, Gothic), uptight, beachy… The key is to match the project with a typeface that fits its character. Does it reflect a certain time period? The time of Frank Lloyd Wright and Charles Rennie Mackintosh’s Willow Tea Room (in Glasgow) might be reflected in a font like Eccentric Standard (shown below), and I can picture it on an antique hardware store quite easily:
Eccentric Standard
A shop in a Scottish castle might use one of these above the line:
Scottish Shop Sign in Castle
Can you see that the ones above the line generally fit, in various degrees? The second one from the top (Goudy Old Style) isn’t a great fit, but the others I can imagine on a store sign. They evoke the bag pipe period and place with their decorative swooshes (They are in order from the top to the line: Lucida Blackletter, Goudy Old Style, Chancery, Flemish, Ambrosia, Bibliotheque.) You can see that Flemish (4th from the top) doesn’t include the character “&”.
But the fonts below the line are clearly mismatched, feeling cold, modern, small caps, not decorative, nor similar to the feeling of the bag pipe era. (These are in order: Bank Gothic, Bauhaus 93, Mesquite Standard Medium, and American Typewriter.)
Cursive is friendly, but generally harder to read. It’s not a good choice for roadstop signs, or store awnings on busy streets. Let’s look at this sample of Mistral, one of the fonts I generally dislike (for overuse and legibility issues):
Mistral Font Sample
These words are difficult to absorb unless you are trying to find the shop’s name– actively seeking it. Why make your business hard to find? Wouldn’t it be better to have the public know your business is there as they wander by? Then they will think of you when they need that service. People don’t have time to seek out your sign. I heard the author of Guerilla Marketing once say, “A business with no sign is a sign of no business.” Having a sign that’s hardly legible is of little use.
Target Demographics
Who is the target audience? Kids, adults, a certain ethnic group? Kids might react positively to these typefaces below. Can you see that the third and last one might appeal to girls, from 9-14 years old?
Kid-Centric Fonts
These have a lot of decoration, feel casual (the top one resembling handwritten marker, and the second from the top handwritten text), with a friendly feel. (From the top they are Marker Felt, Handwriting – Dakota, Giddyup Standard, Chalkboard, SchoolHouse Printed A, Curlz MZ.)
Consider the Font Use (Roadsign, Menu, Paper Report)
It would probably be alright to use harder to read typefaces on menu food titles, because the customer is already sitting down by that point. But if you used the same decorative, harder to read font for the food descriptions, you might make your eaters frustrated. Roadsigns have to be very legible, because the “audience” is viewing them with partial attention, while driving by at high speeds. The best ones are placed a few miles before the store, so the riders can discuss whether to stop.
Now as you go out into the world, I bet you will notice the fonts on restaurants, store signs, menus, roadsigns. Do they fit the character of the shop? Do they contrast with it? Is it readable to the casual passerby and the driver going by at 50mph? Does it fit its use? All of these considerations have to be taken into account when choosing a font face, as I am sure you will remember when you next have to choose one.