Fonts are the voice of your visual identity. The right typography reinforces your brand personality. The wrong typography undermines everything else you’ve built.

The basics

There are five main font categories:

Serif – traditional, trustworthy, editorial (Times New Roman, Georgia). Often used by established institutions.

Sans-serif – modern, clean, accessible (Helvetica, Montserrat, Inter). The dominant choice in digital design and more accessible. Recommended.

Display/decorative – high personality, low versatility. Use for headlines only, never body text.

Script/handwritten – personal, warm, informal. Use very sparingly.

Monospace – technical, digital-native. Rarely appropriate in disability services.

How to choose your brand fonts

Most brands need two fonts at a minimum and three at an absolute maximum:

  1. Heading font – bolder, more personality, used for headlines and titles. Needed.
  2. Body font – clean, legible, used for paragraphs and smaller text. Needed.
  3. Sub-Heading font – for section headers and mini headlines. Nice to have.

They should contrast enough to be visually interesting but complement each other in personality. Most fonts are affordable and easily accessible and downloadable online, grab the .WOFF file and upload to your software so you can use it on docs and not just have it sitting in a shred-drive somewhere. 

Where to find good fonts

  • Google Fonts – free, web-optimised, huge selection
  • Adobe Fonts – included with Adobe Creative Cloud
  • Font Squirrel – free commercial-use fonts
  • Fontshare – high-quality free fonts

Font licensing – don’t get caught out

Not all fonts are free for commercial use. Check the licence before using any font in your brand. If in doubt, stick to Google Fonts which are all open source.

Common mistakes

  • Using too many different fonts (stick to 2, maximum 3)
  • Using a script font for anything requiring legibility. Inaccessible.
  • Stretching or distorting fonts.
  • Ignoring font weight, use bold, regular and light variations intentionally

Exercise

Choose your heading and body font. Set the same sentence in both. How do they look together? Does the combination feel right for your brand personality?

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