Let’s Talk Fonts!
A lot of people don’t realize how much font selection goes into design. They pick one that they personally like and move on. That’s it, right?
I like to think of fonts the way you’re supposed to think of food and wine pairings, “what grows together goes together”. When I’m rebranding I look at influences to determine the font choice. When I was working on branding for a Colombian coffee shop, it was really important to me to use a font designed by a Colombian font designer. Why?
Type design has a problematic history (please, don’t use Gill Sans. Use Johnston instead, I am begging you 🙏). Most of them were “designed” by old white dudes. I put designed in quotes because one person usually gets all of the credit when there were numerous people involved and there were women there too, but obviously women can’t get credit for work they do. When you have one group of people responsible for 93% of all of the fonts in the world, it’s a disservice for everyone. You’re not getting cultural and personal design influences. How could a typeface designed by someone that’s never been to Colombia feel authentic to a Colombian brand? It would be missing critical influences.
Fonts above by César Puertas - shop here
Additionally, you have to think about usage. There is more than English (Latin typefaces) in this world. Fonts need to be useful to people that speak other languages and, at a minimum, have appropriate diacritical marks. Knowing this information helped me choose fonts when I was working for a brand that needed free or cheap fonts for their website to be in 3 languages. The font can’t just “look good.” It had to be usable in all 3 of those languages.
I’m a firm believer that there aren’t bad fonts, just bad applications. Comic sans is great for branding a preschool and Papyrus was iconic in Avatar. These fonts aren’t ideal for more extravagant companies like spas.
Thankfully, the type design industry has seemed to explode with inclusion lately, when most average people don’t even realize that real life human beings make fonts. I’m here for it. More fonts mean more outlooks and diverse designs. I love being so niche with my font choices so that every design decision is on brand.