Good branding requires attention to detail and consistency. Your visual branding is just a piece of the overall brand experience for a consumer. Typography plays a crucial role in the delivery of your brand identity. However, typography choice isn’t important just for your logo. We are communicating constantly to our current and potential clients through the documents we create and send – quotes, emails, proposals, letters, reports, order forms, applications etc. You put a lot of thought into the content but the presentation of your written communication plays a vital role in the way that content is perceived. This is an area that is often overlooked and can be one of those little things that could make all the difference to the perception of your brand.
See your written presentation as serving two main purposes. To strengthen the perception of your brand as well as to communicate your content in the most appropriate way. Attention to detail through your selecting of typefaces will help to do this more effectively.
Electronic documents
It is important to keep in mind that what you see on your computer/device may not what your receiver sees. Emails messages that you format with a specific typestyle may be received in plain text or the receiver may not have your selected typestyle installed on their computer/device. A small range of typestyles have been designed to be clearly readable on a screen and are installed on most computers including:
Serif
- Cambria
- Constantia
- Palatino Linotype
- Georgia
Sans Serif
- Calibri
- Verdana
- Arial
Creating a document that is either attached to an email or printed means you can have control over what is received. Email attachments that are converted to PDF files can have fonts embed so the recipient sees the documents as you intended. If you are using a Windows operating system, remember to check the box next to Embed TrueType fonts when saving from a Microsoft Office Word document.
Embedding a font
Embedding fonts ensures that your PDF uses the same fonts as the original document, no matter where you open the PDF or what fonts are installed on that system. You can verify that your PDF has all fonts embedded by opening your PDF in Adobe Reader. Click on FILE the Properties. Click on the FONT tab. Check to make sure that every font listed shows EMBEDDED SUBSET after the font name. If not, the font is not embedded in your PDF. Some fonts are constructed to prevent PDF embedding.
Typefaces vs. Fonts
When discussing typography two terms are commonly used – font and typeface.
A font is a file. It is the .OTF or .TTF file installed on your computer.
A typeface is the actual typographic item being rendered by the font. It describes the entire family of fonts that make up a typographic work.
Select a typestyle for your documents
Besides branding, the primary goal of written communication is readability — how simple it is for the eyes to absorb the information. When selecting typestyle, look for ambiguity between the number “1”, capital “i” and lowercase “l” as well as between the lowercase “a”, “e” and “o”. “1 Ill ocean” works well to test these characters.
Deciding on a typestyle
So the next time you send a proposal or an email to a potential client, what typestyle do you intend to use? It could mean the difference between a winning piece of copy and one that only delivers so-so results. As Richard Branson said “The only difference between merely satisfactory delivery and great delivery is attention to detail.”
If you’d like to know more about typestyles, branding, setting up branded templates for your business or have any comments, please leave a message below or tweet @BlackMouseDsign
