How to choose a font for your brand

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To choose a font for your brand, start with where people will see it, pick a style that matches how the brand talks, test it on your real name and real words at big and small sizes, keep it to one or two families, and check the license covers every place you’ll use it. If nothing fits, make your own.

What a brand font does

People recognize a brand by its letters long before they read the words. The font is on the sign, the receipt, the bag, the app icon and every post. Seen enough times, the shapes themselves start to mean you.

It also sets the tone of voice. The same sentence reads as calm, loud, expensive or friendly depending on what it’s set in. A good brand font makes everything you write sound a little more like you, without anyone noticing why.

Start from where the font will live

Before you look at a single typeface, list every place your brand typography will appear. A bakery needs a shopfront sign, a chalkboard menu, bag stickers and an Instagram grid. A software company needs an app interface, a website and slides. Each place asks for different things:

  • Signs and packaging are read quickly, from a distance or at an angle. They favor heavy weights and clear, open letters.
  • Menus, labels and price lists are read up close at small sizes. They need a face that stays clear at 12 pixels or on an 8 point label.
  • Apps and websites show lots of text on screens of every size. They need a family with several weights that renders cleanly and loads fast.

Then write down three or four words for how the brand should feel: warm, sharp, old, loud, quiet, precise. Keep that list next to you. It settles more arguments than taste does.

Serif, sans, condensed or display?

Most brand fonts come from a few broad styles, and each one pulls in a direction.

  • Sans serif fonts read as modern and straightforward. They work almost everywhere, which is why so many brands use one. The risk is looking like everyone else.
  • Serif fonts read as established, crafted or literary. They suit food, publishing, hospitality and anything with a sense of history, and they hold up well in long text.
  • Condensed fonts fit long words into tight spaces and look urgent and loud. Great for posters, signs, sports and streetwear. Less comfortable for paragraphs.
  • Display fonts are built to be big and memorable. They make strong logos and headlines, and usually need a plainer partner for everything else.
One name, four voices. Letterhead Sans, Serif, Antique and Condensed

Test it on real words

Every font looks good in its own sample sentence. Type your own material instead: the brand name, a real headline, a price, a menu item, your address, a line from your about page. Problems show up right away. Some names have letter pairs that leave awkward gaps. Some numbers look cheap. Some capitals shout when you didn’t mean them to.

Then look at it at both ends:

  • Big. Set the name as large as it will ever appear, on a sign or a banner. Look at the curves and the spacing. Flaws you can’t see at 16 pixels are obvious at 600.
  • Small. Set a price list or a footer at 12 pixels and print a label at real size. Thin strokes and tight letters fill in or disappear.
  • In place. Mock it up on the actual thing: the bag, the storefront photo, the app screen. A font chosen on a white canvas can look wrong on a kraft paper bag.

How many fonts does a brand need?

Usually just one. One family with a good spread of weights covers most brands: bold for headlines, regular for text, a light or a heavy for the odd moment that needs it. Using one family keeps everything consistent and makes it harder for anyone on the team to get it wrong.

A second family is worth it when it does a different job. A condensed face for signs and price tags. A serif for long reading next to a sans for the interface. If you can’t say what the second font is for, you don’t need it.

One family, every job. Letterhead Sans Black, Bold and Regular

Font pairing basics

If you do use two families, a few habits keep a pairing from fighting itself:

  • Pick contrast on purpose. A serif with a sans, or a condensed headline face with a normal width text face. Two fonts that are almost the same look like a mistake.
  • Give each one a job. One for headlines, one for text, and stick to it everywhere.
  • Match the mood. Different shapes, same feeling. A cold technical sans next to a warm bookish serif can work, but only if your brand is both of those things.

Check the license before you commit

A brand font goes everywhere, so the license has to cover everywhere. A desktop license covers print, packaging, signs and logos made on your computers. Showing the font as live text on your website needs a web license, and building it into an app needs an app license. If an agency or freelancer is picking the font for you, make sure the license ends up in your name, not theirs.

The font licenses guide walks through all of it, including logos, trademarks and client work.

Don’t settle for the default

The fonts that come with every laptop and every website builder are fine. Thousands of brands already use them, so they can’t make you recognizable. The same goes for whatever face is popular this year. It will look like this year.

You don’t need something strange. A familiar style with a few deliberate changes, a little heavier, a little narrower, sharper corners, already sets you apart from the stock version everyone else uses.

When a custom brand font makes sense

A custom font used to mean hiring a type studio. It makes sense sooner now: when you’ve tried a dozen fonts and none of them sound like you, when your brand name has letters that keep looking off, or when you just want letters nobody else has.

In the Letterhead editor you start from a working typeface and shape it with sliders for weight, width, contrast, roundness and serifs until it fits the brand. You can test it on your own words as you go. One Custom Font is $29 once and covers one family for commercial use, in OTF, TTF and WOFF2. The steps are in how to make your own font.

If you’d rather use a finished face, the Letterhead shop sells Letterhead Sans, a neutral grotesk; Letterhead Serif, an old style serif; Letterhead Antique; and Letterhead Condensed. Desktop, Web and App licenses start at $29, paid once. Letterhead Editorial is free under the SIL Open Font License. Once you have the files, how to install fonts gets them onto your computer and into your apps.

Questions people ask

How many fonts should a brand use?
Usually one family, sometimes two. One family with a range of weights covers headlines, body text and small print. Add a second only when it does a job the first can't, like a condensed face for signs or a serif for long reading.
What are the best fonts for logos?
The ones that still read when they're tiny and still look like you when they're huge. Check the logo at favicon size and on a sign. Heavy, simple letters with open shapes usually survive both. A very thin or very detailed face often breaks at one end.
Should my logo font and my website font be the same?
They can be, and using one family for both keeps things simple. Many brands set the logo in a heavier or customized cut and use regular weights of the same family on the site. What matters is that the two feel like the same voice.
Do I need a license to use a font in my logo?
You need a license that covers commercial use, and most desktop licenses allow logos and trademarks. If the font also goes on your website or in an app, that needs a web or app license too. Letterhead's desktop license covers logos.
Is a custom brand font worth it for a small business?
It can be, and it costs far less than it used to. A custom font means no one else has your letters, and you own the files. In Letterhead, One Custom Font is $29 once and covers one family for commercial use.