The font you are now using reflects the characteristic of your company.
Just like any other product, every font has their own characteristic and their own purpose.
You don’t use Hobo for body text, for example, because it’s not built for that purpose.
Some fonts are meant to be funny, some to be serious.
Some to be elegant, some to be casual.
Some for display, some for text.
Sometimes, it’s clearer when we use some example.
ADIDAS
Ever wondered why Adidas remains relevant until this day?
One of the reasons is Adidas carefully chooses the font for every medium they use.
The fonts is always consistent with their brand image.
Logo
Let’s start with the Adidas logo.
Adidas logo is designed on 1971. And since then it has never changed the logotype.
Eventhough Adidas changes the pictorial logo several times.
For the logotype Adidas uses geometric sans serif font, ITC Avant Garde.
The font’s designed by Herb Lubalin. It looks clean, simple, and a bit futuristic (inspired by Bauhaus movement).
ITC Avant Garde is usually used for headline.
It is consistent with Adidas’ brand image who wants to look clean, masculine and flexible toward the future.
Ads
The poster ads, just like any other adidas ads, looks simple and clean.
There’s only three elements in it: Messi, trophy, and words.
The font is Tolyer Medium. You might question Adidas’ decision to use this font. Since it’s not a popular font.
But it turns out that the font designed by TypeSketchBook Foundry is known for the strong and masculine looks.
More important, it is very suitable for headline and display text.
And, Tolyer offers maximum readability even in poor display condition.
So, for the second time, you find a consistency on how Adidas branding itself.
Website
You can’t ignore this one. We live in digital age.
For the website, Adidas carefully chose their font.
It’s reflected from the fact that they choose FF DIN Pro Reguler as their font.
According to Erik Spiekermann (a professor and a famous typographer), this is the best DIN font ever created.
DIN is an acronym for Deutsches Institut fur Normung (The German Institute for Standardization).
This is a font created by Albert Jan Pool. It’s suitable for magazines, advertisements, web, and corporate logo.
CONCLUSION
From that several points, we can draw a conclusion that Adidas always maintains their brand image consistency.
Every font they choose reflects their personality.
The pictorial logo might change, the website display might change, the ads might change, but the core is still the same.
It is still the three stripe — with its masculine, strong, clean, and futuristic looks — who wants to overcome every obstacle and achieve the impossible goal.
You want to stay relevant?
Keep your design up to date and carefully choose your font.
Choose font that reflects your company’s characteristic.