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The 4 Jobs of Your Logo Font

By Erin Ferree

Republish: EasyPublish™
Published: 18Sep2008
Word count: 433
Viewed: 185 time(s)

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Many entrepreneurs think that the font for their business name is like a trophy wife—just there to look pretty, all perfect hair and manicure. So, they try to find a font that looks cool, often without looking at any of the features of the font itself.

But, the font in your logo is a busy little element. It works 4 jobs!

So, what are the font's jobs?

The font's job is to be legible and scalable, to make your business name look good, and to strengthen your entire brand story. Let's break these elements down one at a time.

1. To be legible

Your business name should be able to be read easily, quickly, and clearly.

Make sure the letters are spaced far enough apart, so that they don't bleed together visually or when printed.

Make sure that the letter shapes are distinguishable from one another—that your lower case "I" doesn't look like an "L," for example.

Also ensure that you can read it at a glance. Most people won't pore over your logo. They'll just skim it. You want to make sure that the font that you choose is not difficult to read. This becomes even more important when your logo is featured on a sign, vehicle, or billboard—where your viewers will be passing it at a fast pace.

2. To be scalable

Your logo should be able to blow up to billboard size and scale down to postage stamp size and be readable across all of these different options. Make sure that legibility doesn't suffer when size changes. Scaling up usually isn't an issue, but scaling down can be a real problem on ornate or heavily stylized fonts.

3. To make your business name look good

Choose a font that includes good letter shapes for all the letters in your business name. For example, some lower case Gs look pretty funky — so if your business name includes a G, you may want to stay away from fonts that include strange Gs like the one on the right.

4. To support your brand definition

This is your font's last job, and it can be done in different ways in your logo, depending on how much of your brand story is told by your logo icon.

If you've told most of your story with the icon, then all the font needs to do is support that.

If you choose your logo font carefully to perform these 4 jobs for your business, then it will be more than just a pretty face—it will help your logo to be more effective.

Erin Ferree is a brand identity designer who creates big visibility for small businesses. As the owner of elf design, Erin is passionate about helping her clients stand out in front of their competition and attract more clients. Her "Define Your Difference Branding Workbook" will help you with your brand definition - the most important step in the logo design process. http://www.elf-design.com/products-define.html

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