How to create a branded font system for your small business

Many small business owners think their logo is the main thing they need to brand their businesses. But in reality, there are so many other factors—and your fonts are one of them. 

Since we spread our messages through copy or words, it’s important that those words are visually a representation of who we are. Having consistent fonts also allows us to become recognizable, and when we stay consistent, we also look more “legit” and gain credibility among our people. 

So what does a font system consist of? The TL;DR is that you should have fonts for your headlines, subheads, body copy, and calls to action buttons. Here’s how I recommend approaching choosing fonts for each of those categories…

Headline

For your headline font, you want to find something that is packed with your brand’s personality and looks nice at larger sizes. Usually, this one can be a bit more decorative than your other fonts since your headlines are the biggest in size & the shortest in length of all your copy. 

Subheads 

From a text hierarchy perspective, subheads fall between your headlines and your body copy. They support the headline and provide a little more context to hook your reader, but they’re generally only a sentence (or less) in length. As such, we want to make sure they look the part. Meaning, your subhead should be smaller than your headline but stand out from your body copy. While there are no hard rules here, I generally utilize the same font as the body copy for subheads but treat it in a different way. For example, I’ll make sure subheads are bold and all capitalized. 

Body copy

Your body copy should pair nicely with your headline font, be aligned with your brand’s personality, and be legible at smaller sizes. Whenever you have a larger block of text or a paragraph explaining something, you’ll want to use your body copy. 

Call to action

It’s important to have a font style for your CTA buttons, too. Again, this is not a hard rule but I typically use the same font and style for the subheads and the CTAs. This helps to keep things consistent and tie everything together nicely. 

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Wondering if your font system is on brand… or want ideas on how to improve it to better show up and attract your ideal audience? I’m offering FREE brand audits where I review your online presence and give you tangible tips on how to improve and I’d love to chat. You can book your call using this link!