Choosing the Right Fonts for Your Website

Effective branding is a crucial element for the success of any business – large or small. One of the key elements in successful branding, is choosing a consequent line for the design of marketing, packaging and promotional materials.

While many small business owners are increasingly becoming aware of the importance of design for their branding efforts, fonts are still largely a neglected area in that field. One of the reasons for that, is that many business owners simply don’t know enough about fonts to have an opinion about them.

This post will shed some light on choosing the right fonts for your website.

Fonts 101

Let’s start with the very basic division between the two main font families: serif and sans serif.

Serifs are those little decorative marks that you see at the end of the letters. Sans serif fonts are fonts that do not have these decorations.

Generally speaking, serifs are largely identified with “old-school” typography and are considered especially suitable for print. You’ll see them mainly in newspapers, books and magazines. The reason for this, is that serif fonts are considered easier to identify and read in long texts.

Sans serif fonts, on the other hand, are more modern and are the standard for digital/web design. They look simpler, “cleaner”, cooler are are considered to be easier to read online.

These are the bare basics but keep in mind that this is a pretty crude distinction. There are many voices out there saying that it’s time to part with the serif-sans serif mythology and use fonts more liberally.

Which font is right for you?

To answer this question, you need to go back to your brand identity. When your target market engages with your brand, what kind of feel would you like your business to convey to them? Are you targeting a relatively young audience or an older and more traditional market segment? Will you be using more visual or more text-based content in your branding? And no less important, what kind of style fits your business most?

Despite what some people will tell you, there are no rules to picking a font scheme. There are only your personal preferences and goals.

Some helpful guidelines

Although there are no rules, there are a few guidelines that can help you choose the best fonts for your brand.

• Unless you are a typography pro, don’t use more than 2 font types on your website.
  
  Keep the body text in a basic and simple font and add some flair to your website with unique fonts in the titles.
  
  
• If you work in a more “traditional” line of business i.e consultant, real estate agent or lawyer, keep the fonts traditional as well.
  
  
• On the other hand, if you are an artist, photographer or illustrator, you can definitely experiment with bolder fonts.
  
  
• If you want to add a personal touch, use a handwritten font but try to minimise it to headers and subheaders only.
  
  
• If your main audience is kids, keep the fonts fun, young and fresh.
  
  
• If your business is a gym, construction company or an auto shop, try using heavy, bold, square fonts in your titles.
  
  
• Long, lean and thin fonts project an elegant luxury feel, so they would be perfect for a hotel, jewelry shop or interior designer portfolio.

Experiment before you decide

When you design your business website, you can easily switch fonts to test which one works best with your overall design and with your brand identity.

SOURCE: Wix