Trends In Typography
It’s always a tricky business choosing the right font for a logo and typography for a brand. There are many factors to consider before you even open up Illustrator. Most importantly is the industry for which it is intended, as well as the target audience, tone of voice, aesthetic appearance, application (be it web or print) and whether or not it visually communicates the correct message for the company.
Reflecting values through the typography is a vital part of a logo as well as primary and secondary fonts in branding. A change of font, weight, size, x height, wether it is in capital letters, can all totally change the connotations of a brand. Looking at how typography is used in individual industries such as Fashion, Creative & Film we can begin to build up a greater picture of why certain fonts are popular and widely used for specific industries.
The fashion industry has honed in on a few good ones. Didot, Garamond and Bodoni are often used as primary or secondary fonts in fashion brands. Time and time again you can see the use of these three, which seem to be perfectly balanced for fashion. and are used predominately throughout magazines such as Vogue, Marie Clare & Bazaar, as well as clothes stores, fashion labels and fragrance brands. Fashion industry logo’s are generally serif fonts set in black, or white reversed out on black.
Helvetica is among the most widely used sans-serif typeface in the Creative Industries. Design agencies tend to use Helvetica in their own branding due to it’s neutral design qualities and great clarity, with no intrinsic meaning in its form to confuse an agencies logo with a brand. It is it’s none de-script simplicity and longstanding as a designers all-rounder font which makes Helvetica so dominant in the creative industry.
In film the font which is chosen has a critical role to play, as it needs to evoke a feeling associated with the film. A common font used in film titles and movie posters is Trajan Pro. In fact this font has been used so often that many designers feel it may have had it’s day. So why is it so popular in film? In my opinion it’s because it is a classic, easily legible font with a timeless feel of quality and history, which seems to cover most bases for film posters. Univers is pretty much a standard secondary font for film posters & DVD covers.
Check out the links below, looking at fonts for the three industries discussed in more detail.
• Fashion
• Creative
Posted By: Dave
16 October 2009