Forget that font

As I flick through the local paper each week I see countless examples of why the custom designed typography from a logo should be left alone. Headlines, body copy or even big words watermarked in the background of any piece of advertising or graphic design, in a hybrid version of the logo font, does not make for good design and should definitely be avoided.

Designing a logo is a balancing act. The few letters that make up the company name need to work perfectly together to create balance, legibility and a unique recognisable entity. They also need to work with the selected colours and the graphic devise, if there is one. Generally speaking, a good logo design will be made from letters based on a font but custom designed to work together, in other words you can’t find the font and just type in the company name to get the logo.

Take a look at any of the big guys in the advertising game and you will rarely find their logo font used anywhere but in the logo. Imagine if Coca Cola used their highly recognisable font for their headlines. Not only would it detract from the logo but it would be very difficult to read. The key here is having a good complementary font or even a couple. One for headlines and another for body copy, maybe even a few different styles for subheadings etc. Used consistently these complementary fonts will do just that – complement the logo and add value to the brand.

So next time you go to use the base font from your logo for a presentation or letter think twice.