Brand & identity

Stripe uses GT America. Linear uses Inter. Apple uses San Francisco. You recognise each from a single paragraph.

Logo typeface

The logo typeface is the one whose letter shapes look best for your brand name. A gorgeous lowercase g is wasted on a name that doesn't contain one.

• Set your name in thirty or forty candidates at the size it appears most often. Eliminate quickly.
• Focus on the characters you actually use. A five-letter name might hinge on one a or one R.
• Favour distinctive glyphs over generic ones.

Brand capitalisation

Pick one. Enforce it everywhere.

• Initial cap (Acme): simplest, most readable.
• All caps (ACME): works for short names with letterspacing. Not for names longer than two words.
• Mid-word cap (AcmeCorp): only if the brand has always used it.

Skip .com in brand names. It dates the brand.

The real rule: consistency. If the brand is "Acme" on the website, it should not be "ACME" in the app and "acme" in emails.

Cross-medium consistency

• Web: WOFF2, variable fonts, self-hosted or Google Fonts.
• Print: OTF/TTF, embedded in PDFs.
• Mobile: bundled into the binary.
• Email: fallback stacks required.
• Video: large sizes expose quality issues invisible at body size.

Helvetica on the web, Georgia in emails, and system fonts in the app sends one message: we didn't think about this.

Licensing

• Desktop: design tools and print output.
• Webfont: @font-face on websites, priced by pageview tier.
• App: embedding in native mobile or desktop apps.
• Server: server-side rendering or PDF generation.

Google Fonts and open-source libraries are free for all uses. Premium foundries charge per format and tier.

Don't use pirated fonts. Pirated files are often incomplete, missing kerning tables, OpenType features, or entire character sets.

Making body text distinctive

Most projects default to Inter, system-ui, Helvetica, or Roboto. Find a face that reads well at body sizes, ships the weights you need, and isn't the same one your closest competitors use.

The one distinctive move

Every project needs at least one typographic choice that separates it from template defaults:

• A headline typeface nobody else in your space uses.
• Letterspaced small caps for section labels.
• Oldstyle figures in running text.
• A branded colour for h2 headings.

One deliberate choice, applied consistently, does more than six half-committed ones.

Pick one typographic move. Protect it across every redesign. Brand equity in type is built through repetition, not variety.