Are You Using the Right Font?
Fonts and Branding:
As previously discussed in our recent post on the psychology of color, fonts have a significant influence on the branding and marketing of a company. However, despite the vast number of options, choosing a font is sometimes overlooked as part of building a brand. Fonts generate emotional responses, and can impact not just how your customers feel about your brand but how much they buy from you.
Emotional Effect:
Words have the power to captivate a large audience, but the words you choose only makes up part of your impact – fonts matter too.
Errol Morris of The New York Times, along with the help of Cornell psychologist David Dunning, conducted a psychological experiment to determine how fonts affect a reader’s believability on the subject. One scientific study was distributed to 40,000 subjects, and was presented in different fonts including Times New Roman, Helvetica, Georgia, Comic Sans, and Baskerville – all common font choices. After conducting their experiment, results showed that most people found the article written in Baskerville to be the most credible, with Georgia in second place. Baskerville was ahead by 1.5 percent. Dunning told the New York Times “that advantage may seem small… but if that was a bump up in sales figures, many online companies would kill for it. The fact that font matters at all is a wonderment.”
How to find the right font for your company:
Think of a font as a company’s personality. The font you choose sets the tone of your message – whether it’s casual, formal, sophisticated, futuristic, or playful.
There is no one best font for your business – but some fonts are definitely better than others. Try testing different fonts on your website, and see how they impact sales. Or best of all, consult with a graphic designer to come up with an identity that fits your business and its mission.
Watch the TED Talk on how fonts can affect perception of a brand here.
