Watching T.V last night they were screening Resident Evil - After Life on one of the commercial channels. For those who have not heard of the movie it is about zombies, guns and monsters. As with all movies from recent memory that are in the sci-fi / horror genre it is an at times violent, brooding dark type of movie. What made this movie stand out was during ad-breaks they will cue the start and finish of the advertisments with a picture of the main character and the words Resident Evil in a hilariously dated 80's font. The cool factor of this movie was quickly erased!

Something that graphic designers know that you may not is that Fonts can absolutely scream outloud more than any content or title you may care to think about. A bad font can break your brand name and your image very very quickly. The font you use matters for virtually every piece of communication that you may care to use.

- Emails
- Letterheads
- Advertisments
- Faxes
- Logos
- Business Cards
- Promotional material

The phrase that "You Can Never Judge A Book By Its Cover," may be true. Unfortunately when it comes to fonts 100% of people can and will judge you and your company by the way your lettering looks. This means it does not matter if you are an established company or an up and coming business you simply must pay attention to font. So you still do not think that fonts make a difference? Well check out these examples of some that I created for the movie that I watched last night:

The bottom last font is the official movie font. Ignoring for a second the red background (dont have the tools on hand to remove) the last one definitely looks more angry and menacing which is perfectly in line with the movie. The logo has sharp corners and edges like a knife whilst the patchy red colour simply looks dangerous. The other 4 either look like an office font, a 60s burger drive through, or a 70's Army motif. The question I have in mind is why is this the case?

Why fonts look different and mean different things has a lot to do with pop culture and where we grew up. Me having grown up in Oz means that my perception of fonts will be very much similar to a lot of others who have the same background as me. Therefore something like this will remind me of the 70's.

Why? Well thats because I used to watch a TV show of the same name and this type of font was displayed all the time on the show. However if I was to show this to perhaps someone who was brought up in India then the reaction may be totally different to mine.

Despite the fact that our experiences may give fonts a different reaction to different people there are certain fonts that are just so common in pop culture that they give out instant reactions and emotions regardless of background. These are the powerfonts that you may interest you as they would be key ones to think about when creating logos for your company as well as logos to brand onto promotional merchandise.

Fonts commonly used by banking are simple and gives the impression that banks are assessible, unpretentious and reliable. In other words community which is precisely the target audience of banks.

More curves and bends as well as lines which varies in thickness on text can give brands an impression of traditional values, quality and trustworthiness. Just check these ones out:

On the other hand these logos are youthful and gives the impression of fun or forward thinking.

These are 3 examples of what I like to consider powerfonts. The way the letters are formed are high impact and give immediate reactions no matter what your background.

When we brand promotional merchandise and we are not given instructions on what font to brand we generally use Arial. We all know Arial and it is on literally all word processors and emails. The reason is that Arial is what it is. There is no mistaking it for a font that is classical nor futuristic. Therefore instead of us guessing incorrectly the theme of your company an Arial font can simply imply both or neither which makes it neutral and ideal for when we are not given direction. However if you are ordering merchandise and are stuck for font but you did indeed have an idea as to the direction of your brand please let us know and we would be able to advise something that would be more appropriate. For help with branding your logo please give us a call for more insightful ideas. We are always here to help!