Choosing The Right Google Font For Your Business

In the age of print, Times New Roman was the font that reigned supreme. But as business owners gained access to a library of fonts at their fingertips, choosing a font became a whole lot more complicated, especially in the world of digital. The font on your website can say a lot about your brand and if done well, can increase conversions. Here is a guide on how to pick the Google fonts that reflect your business digitally while being user-friendly.

Find Your Why

Fonts and typography can play a big role in reflecting your business and brand. When you select the right font, it’s usually one that is easy to read, user-friendly and web-friendly. But did you know that a font can communicate your brand’s values and message too?

Once you are clear on your branding, values, and your why, the tricky part is finding the right fonts to get that message across. But before you choose a font, it’s essential to understand the basics. The two categories we will explore are serif and sans serif.

Serif or Sans Serif? And Which is Which? Help!

This is a serif font. This is a sans serif font.

Even if you know nothing about type design, you can see that one of the above fonts has “feet” (A.K.A serifs) at the ends of strokes where the second font does not. You can utilise each style to communicate a different message, or you can use them together – let’s explore how each style changes your brand’s tone and personality.

Serif Fonts

Going for the “serious and reliable” look and feel? A serif typeface could evoke that. Echoing the bygone days of typewriters and newspapers, they suggest the weight of history and experience. In giving off this classical and professional theme, the use of these fonts can elevate your business to a certain level of authority and loyalty. Institutions have used serif fonts since the 18th century, so serif fonts are useful if you are a more traditional business (e.g. law practices, financial firms, insurance companies) or corporate leaning (e.g. marketing brochures).

Sans Serif Fonts

Where serif fonts look to the past, sans serif fonts are all about modern sophistication. To begin with, these fonts were controversial. However, they roared into widespread use as modernist designers embraced them for their minimal, simplistic feel. A sans serif font throws tradition out the window, helping businesses appear youthful, accessible and cutting-edge. This is commonly used in innovation-focused or digital fields, such as marketing brands and start-ups.

Determine the type of content the font will be used for

Decide if the fonts are for your blog, homepage, landing page, product description, or navigation menu. For body text, serif typefaces can make for better user experience, especially at smaller scales. It’s more legible as the user can more easily distinguish letterforms with the help of serifs. If your business has blog content, for example, serifs make characters appear closer together, making long passages flow in terms of readability. It all depends on the type of content your site has.

Fonts are important, so it’s time to get rid of the default.

Google Fonts is one of the best resources for free website fonts. With a library of 923 licensed fonts, the platform has some of the top site fonts that go together. Free for commercial use, these fonts have the added benefit of already being installed on popular web-hosting platforms like Shopify. You can also download the fonts for commercial use.

• You may want to use a few different fonts on your website: just don’t overdo it. Less is more
• The key to a powerful font combination is contrast. The two fonts should differ enough to be distinguishable while not distracting the user.
• Each page should have two fonts as a rule of thumb; three at the most. Rather than using more fonts, try using variations of the font already on the page (e.g. light, italic, medium, bold).

I’ve Picked My Fighter: Which Font Size is Best?

We’ll let you in on a secret: randomly picking font sizes that “look good” isn’t the best approach. Like all things related to web design and UX, there’s a science to it, and a name for it too: modular scaled font sizes. This is a series of font sizes that are perfectly proportioned to appear “beautiful” to the general public.

These magic numbers are: 16, 24, 32, 48, 64, 95.

For example, 16-19px is the optimal size for your body text. Some fonts are made smaller than others, so it varies. This range isn’t too small in size, nor is it too big. It improves your paragraph’s readability.

Give our design team a call, and they can help you find the fonts to reflect your business. Whether you’ve been online for a while or currently making the switch, our seasoned UX/UI pros can help you make the right impression on your users. At Vine Digital, we can help your business come across the way you want.