The choice of font can make or break a logo, since different font types can change your brand’s mood and message. While most people are familiar with the science of color psychology, many people are oblivious to the fact that different fonts have their own distinct characteristics and emotional appeal, and your typeface determines the tone and voice in which you wish to communicate with your audience. Let’s look into different typefaces to help you find your “type”.

Serif font

Being the most popular and traditional font option, serif fonts evoke an old-school classic, elegant feel, making them ideal for making your brand appear “established”. Named after the “feet” that can be distinguished at the top and bottom of each letter, these clean-modern fonts help you achieve a minimal look and are great for portraying feelings of trust, credibility and respectability. Serif fonts ate the best choice for brand identifies that revolve around authority and grandeur. Due to their timeless and sophisticated appeal, they are best for brands in academic, editorial, financial or fashion sectors. Rolex, Yale, The New York Times, Gucci, Coach, Vogue, Prada, and Mercedes-Benz are traditional and luxurious brands that use serif fonts in their logos.

Some popular serif fonts ideal for logo designing include:

• Bodoni
• Times New Roman
• Century
• Garamond Benton
• Georgia
• Minion
• Baskerville

Sans Serif

Due to their clean, modern and minimalist look, and Sans serif typefaces allow for maximum legibility and versatility. A lot of contemporary brands that want to portray a no-nonsense attitude or be seen as modern and progressive, have made the shift to Sans Serif logos. Sans Serif fonts appear more friendly, informal, causal, and approachable than their more traditional Serif counterparts and have a crisp readability on screen. Lack of bells and whistles allow these logos to convey a sense of honesty and sensibility and put your message across to the users without distracting the eye. A lot of forward-thinking brands use Sans serif such as Channel, Facebook, Netflix, Nike, Microsoft, and Evian. If you put clarity and straight-forwardness over flairs, this typeface is best for your brand. However, the only downside is that the lack of additional details and features doesn’t leave much in terms of differentiation.

Some of the best sans serif fonts that you can explore for your next logo design project are:

• Helvetica
• Arial
• Century Gothic
• Open Sans
• Roboto
• Proxima Nova

Slab Serif

Slab serif typefaces are essentially serifs but with specific slab sections in them.  Due their friendly yet authoritative feel, brands that wish to exude an aura of confidence, integrity, and a sense of bold attitude. With their iconic angles, curves and ‘kicks’, slab Serif logos are distinct and immediately remarkable. They’re most popularly used by car and technology brands who want to install confidence in their customers and boast latest technology. Volvo, Sony, and Honda use slab serif in their logos to give the impression of elegance and sturdiness. Compared to the more traditional Serif family, slab serif fonts garner more eyeballs and leave a more powerful impact. Some of the best Slab serif fonts for your next logo design venture include:

• Nouveau slab serif
• Kompakt
• Wonder
• Bogart
• Grover Slab
• Jeunesse Slab
• FF Unit Slab
• Rockwell
• Bondie

Script Font

Designed to imitate cursive handwriting, these fancy fonts are used to evoke feelings of creativity, formality, femininity, ingenuity, and elegance. Scripts fonts are often used by companies who wish to convey feeling, history, or experience, or to flaunt their creative side.  Formal cursive fonts are best for tasteful, elaborate and luxurious brands, such as Cadillac, Ford, and Cartier, Johnson & Johnson and Harrods, while Casual, handwritten scripts are best for practical-looking brands, such as Ray-ban and virgin. Now a days, we are also seeing Script fonts being used for natural, organic products‍, such as Whole Foods.

However, be careful when choosing a script font for your logo and make sure you are not compromising legibility in the name of creativity. Some of our all-time favorite script fonts include:

• Lucida Script
• Pacifico
• Allura
• Dancing Script
• Satisfy
• Lobster
• Zapfino

Display logo Fonts

While there are literally thousands of fonts out there, some businesses design their own out-of-the-box, signature font to stand out and make a mark. Display or decorative fonts distinguish your brand, help you leave a powerful impact, and resonate with your audience. Look at how Disney’s iconic font is modeled after the founder’s signature, and is a direct reflection of their magical themes and the fairytales we love.

Also, notice how the pink and blue logo of Baskin robins depicts a large “BR” that doubles as the number “31,” or the number of flavors they offer. A signature font and symbology is used to convey the fun and energy of the Baskin-Robbins brand.