Deliberate differentiation.

 

Design legend, Debbie Millman, said in an interview that this is what branding means to her. The purposeful effort to set yourself apart from your peers.

 

You have a message to deliver. No matter what field or niche you are in, you aim to connect with your customers, your audience, your people. And to do that, you have certain tools at your disposal.

 

As a business that is marketing itself online, one of those tools is font design. It’s an often-overlooked aspect of marketing, but the letters matter. Here’s why:

 

Font design carries your brand’s message

Yes, being different is important. But, there is such a thing as excess. Above, you can see where this animal goods store tripped over their own creativity.

 

One of the most important, yet elusive, assets of today’s economy is attention. When you are speaking to your audience with the written word, it is important to be wary of attention span. You have to get in and deliver your value proposition quickly. Otherwise, your audience is off to the next thing that speaks their language.

 

Weak font design = weak communication.

 

Speak your audience’s language or get out of the way.

 

At BeatCreative Marketing, we take design seriously. From our typography to our layout flow, we keep our branding dynamic and cutting-edge, even completely remodeling our website in October 2016.

 

But while we’re keen to adapt to new trends in the constantly-changing world of social media marketing, BeatCreative Marketing always keeps our fundamental design values in sight. Design only works when it serves the audience.

 

Of course, your audience can be engaged in a totally different manner, like during this year’s Oscar mix up for the best picture category. “La La Land” was mistakenly announced as the winner, there was some live commotion on stage that had everybody watching, confused and cringing, and the producer of “La La Land,” Jordan Horowitz, finally stepped forward to say, “‘Moonlight,’ you guys won best picture.”

 

There are several factors that influenced this mistake, but we’ve focused on the design choices. Notably, the envelope.

The paper pocket that held the Oscar winners was remodeled this year, so when Warren Beatty was handed the incorrect envelop to read, the mistake wasn’t easily identified.

 

Instead of a gold background and large, white lettering, the envelopes this year were red. Against the red background stood a harder-to-read gold lettering for the category. Some say that if the font were more legible, the “Best Actress” on the envelop would not have been mistaken for “Best Picture.”

 

Even on one of the largest stages in the world, the importance of font design spoke volumes.

 

How to design font for your website, logo, marketing, etc.

 

Do you know who you are talking to? How well do you know who your customer is?

 

It’s important to know your customer on multiple levels because – like anything else in your business – font design is centered around your audience.

 

What do your customers enjoy doing in their free time? How much money do they make annually? What kind of music do they listen to? If you don’t already know, then now is a great time to use some survey tools and customer engagement to find out more about them.

 

Now, write the story of your audience, and decide how your product will aid the heroes. Does it help them? How? Why would they choose this product over another? How do you want them to feel when they think about your business?

 

Once you have a comprehensive understanding of exactly what your audience is and wants, you can use the chart below from Crazy Egg to cross reference your customer profile. This guide should help you identify which font styles would best resonate with your target audience.

On our website, we use Montserrat, a sans-serif font. By communicating with clean and modern typeface, we attract customers that look for not only innovation, but long-term relationships.

 

It’s often said that in questions lie treasure. There are always more questions than answers. Keep asking, “What else can I do?” and you will find that your design choices resonate with your tribe more and more.

 

Click here to discuss your project =-> https://beatcreativemarketing.com/#contact