Font psychology is the official term for how our thoughts, feelings and behaviours are influenced when we engage with particular fonts. In the world of branding, we utilise font psychology to further enhance your brand’s message and ensure that if we’re wanting to create a particular emotional response, our font is bearing some of the load. 

Every major font category tells a unique story. Our classic squad of serif fonts have always been around. We know exactly what we’re getting with them and they’re very familiar to us. When used in branding, Serif fonts tell our customers that we’re established, we’re trustworthy and we have the utmost respect for what we do. 

A serif font’s younger cousin, the sans-serif font still gives us the classic, trustworthy vibes but with a modern twist. This is why legendary brands like Google have used sans-serif as their hero font to convey that they’re still your trusted go-to brand but they’re still cutting-edge and with the times. 

Both our serif and sans-serif fonts are used by millions of brands around the globe because of their flexibility, adaptability and inclusivity. When a brand is wanting to share a sense of boldness and power [think Nike or even Netflix], they turn up the size and boldness of their classic sans-serif font. 

Add colour into the mix [if you haven’t read our blog on colour psychology, click here] and the same font can give off a very different message. 

For many brands within the hair, beauty and wellness industries, we see script fonts arise left, right and centre and we’re totally not mad about it because they are stunning!

This family of fonts is used when wanting to spark inspiration and creativity. Often used for very visual brands [like yours], script fonts provoke feelings of femininity, elegance and chicness thanks to their hand-written nature. As we know, those feelings go hand-in-hand with feeling more personalised and emotional. 

If going down the path of a more creative font like a script, it’s important to ensure they are legible both in print and digital. Throwing it back to our blog post on inclusive branding, we need to ensure that the fonts, colours and sizing we choose for our brand messaging can be viewed on a variety of platforms easily and by a diverse number of consumers. 

This is where combining fonts comes into play. Many brands, including ours, don’t just stick to one single font. Instead, we harness a series of fonts that not only work in harmony together, but each showcase the unique characteristics that make up our whole brand personality. 

For example, our signature Bloom script font without a doubt supports the fun, sassy and positive ethos we carry throughout everything we do at Digital Bloom. If our entire branding was in this font, it would not only be difficult to read but perhaps not back up our kickass credibility that we have in the industry! 

That’s why we’ve paired our hero font with trustworthy and ultra-legible serif and sans-serif fonts for our touchpoints such as our website text, social media tiles, brand announcements and freebies. Combining these two fonts tells our dream customers that we’re a ball of fun but we’re also at the top of our game in the branding space.

So, how do you know if you’ve chosen the right fonts for your business? This always comes back to your brand values and the messages you’re committed to sharing with your dream customer. If the fonts your brand has been using throughout your touchpoints don’t align with this, then it’s time to review and refresh your choices. 

For example, your Brunswick hair salon might be loaded with neon’s and flower walls, but your brand fonts are all super-structured and serious. How are your funky dream customers meant to know about all the good vibes you’re bringing to their brand experience if your fonts are telling a different story? Bingo! A typography review.  

This could include adding a new, more diverse font to your typography family to add extra emphasis to your message, adjusting the hero font that features throughout your brand or even removing and updating a font that isn’t serving you in messaging, style or legibility. 

Select fonts that work hard for your brand and are the equivalent of your brand personality and connect with your target audience. When it comes to mixing and matching fonts, strike a balance between your trusted fonts and the one that is going to ensure your brand stands out amongst the crowd. Sizing, spacing and font hierarchy should feature as parts of your overall style guide so that whoever is working on your brand, knows where and when it’s time to use your selected fonts.