Fonts

In 2018, we saw big, bold graphic design, with bright colors and fonts that seemed to have more impact rather than just being new or novel. Will these trends continue into 2019? Vengage created an infographic detailing what the eight big trends will be in graphic design over the next year. These are the highlights:

Choosing to completely redesign your logo is a big step. Customers have likely grown accustomed to your current look and, as it has been proven time and again, most people don’t like change. You risk losing customers, sparking some outrage and, even worse, losing a large portion of revenue from people who either hate the new look or just don’t recognize it anymore and can’t find your company.

Creating a logo is more than just throwing together an image with a fun font and bright colors. Truly successful companies, such as Starbucks and Target, know the key to logo design actually lies in the psychology behind it. Each choice, from shape to color to font, delivers a specific message to customers.

Typography is more than the font options in the drop-down menu of a Word document or the Adobe Creative Suite. There is far more complexity to each font that it is important to know before you make selections for your small business or your customers. Typefaces have personality and can evoke emotion and even inspire potential customers.

In pop culture, we are surrounded by logos that are so incredible, they have become recognizable across multiple generations, such as the golden arches, a silhouette of an apple or the black swoosh. Even these descriptors alone automatically trigger in most minds the brands they represent.

You may have asked this question when considering your own company’s branding. Certainly, several major corporations have invested a great deal of time and energy in selecting typefaces.

Often when we hear about the concept of “the brand” in the business press the focus tends to be on huge companies. In the late 20th century, it was firms that dominated their markets with high-quality, specialized yet mass-produced products that just about everyone used from brands such as Kodak and M&M Mars.

We’ve been hearing a lot re-brands in the last 12 months. It seems that every sector, from big corporations to non-profits and from government-affiliated institutions to cities big and small are making decisive moves. They are thinking hard about their names, their logos, and ultimately their “brands”. But branding a business of any size should not be done without careful consideration.