We’ve talked about why it’s important to grab your prospects by the eyeballs. We’ve covered what you need to know about your audience before you start marketing. And we touched on how delivering your message with stories is a great way to sell.

Enough with the prep work: you’re ready to get those marketing pieces set up! The first place to start is your typeface, because your typeface choice tells a lot about your business and what it stands for. Marketing guru Seth Godin talks about it here.

Before you decide what you want the typeface to say, let’s review the two main typeface categories.

Serif Typefaces: Classic, Timeless, Easy to Read

Serif typefaces have little “feet” at the bottoms of the letters. You probably have the typefaces Georgia and Times Roman on your computer, and those are both serif typefaces. They are classic, timeless and make your business look established. Serif typefaces are good for long blocks of text, too, which is why most books and magazines are set in serif typefaces.

Sans Serif Typefaces: Streamlined, Modern, Contemporary

Sans means “without,” so sans serif typefaces are “without” the little feet that serif typefaces have. You probably have Arial and Verdana on your computer, and they are both sans serif typefaces.

Sans serif typefaces are streamlined, modern and contemporary and make your business look cutting-edge and modern. Sans serif typefaces are good for instructions, or any time clarity is important. Sans serif typefaces look great on the web, and many sites use them as text typefaces.

To make your job easier, I recommend you use no more than two typefaces. Pick full typeface “families,” with regular, italic, semi-bold, bold, etc. That will give you lots of options for headlines, subheads and captions.

For maximum versatility, pick a serif and a sans serif typeface that work well together. This can be tricky to get just right. Here’s one way to do it:

Use Your “AGE”

To combine a serif and sans serif typeface, look for similar letter forms. The best letters to try to match up are lower case “a,” “g,” and “e.” Let’s take a look:

See the typeface sample to the left? Notice the shape of the letter “a.” Now look at the “g” and “e.”

Which of the following sans serif typefaces will combine well with the example above?

The lower case “a,” “g,” and “e” in Example A are the best match. The
letter forms are similar. These two typefaces will combine well without clashing.

In Search of Type Resources

It’s easy to find typefaces on the web at low or no cost. Be careful, though: many are low quality, and will make your business look unprofessional. A quality, full-family typeface that represents your business is a great investment, and since typeface technology doesn’t evolve as quickly as software, your typeface should still be as usable in 20 years as it is today. Fonts.com and Myfonts.com are two good resources where you can invest in typefaces to represent your business.

For no-cost typefaces, try these links. Remember, go for quality, readability, and a full family of weights if possible:

searchfreefonts.com | dafont.com | urbanfonts.com

These two links from Smashing magazine feature beautiful no-cost typefaces:

Smashing magazine 40 fonts | Smashing magazine 15 fonts

And just for fun, a type joke. This site from Pentagram, a top-notch design studio, purports to help you figure out your “type.” Type in your name and use the password “character” to access the site: What type are you?

Have a question about type? Need some help picking yours? Ask away in the comments.

Design 101

This is the fourth in a series of ten lessons called “Design 101.”

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