/logo-design

Typography for Logos

Typography is pictures of words. We decode letterforms the way we decode images: their shapes carry attitude, history and culture before a single word is read. Read this when designing wordmarks, lettermarks, lockups, or choosing brand typefaces.

Contents

1. Choosing a direction: type study
2. Classification and what each voice says
3. Custom vs. existing type
4. Letterform craft (spacing, kerning, optical fixes)
5. Lockups: symbol + type
6. Brand typefaces beyond the logo
7. Licensing and technical checks
8. Common mistakes

1. Choosing a direction: type study

1. Set the name in 20–40 candidate typefaces across categories, in lowercase, uppercase and title case. Starting with type is a legitimate way to begin a logo — once the type is right, the rest can flow from it.
2. Judge by: the shape of the letters in combination (not individually), legibility, the rhythm of the word, how the letters echo the way the word sounds, and how it reads at small size.
3. Shortlist 3–5 and look for opportunities: interesting letter pairs, shared strokes, counters that can hold a shape, a letter that can become a sign, repeated letters that can create rhythm, a natural ligature.
4. Only then customise (see §3).

Legibility varies with case: some typefaces read better in upper and lower case, others in capitals. Test.

2. Classification and what each voice says

Tone rules of thumb:

• Heavier weights read strong/confident; lighter weights read elegant/quiet (but fragile at small sizes).
• Wide proportions feel stable and expansive; condensed feel efficient, urgent, editorial.
• Lowercase feels approachable; uppercase feels monumental. Title case is the neutral default.
• Serif ↔ sans pairing in one mark can express "heritage + modern" (e.g. a classic ampersand in a modern gothic name).

3. Custom vs. existing type

• Most viewers can't tell a custom face from a stock one, yet it's precisely the unique attributes of custom letters that give the client ownership and protect against imitation. An unmodified stock font can be typed by anyone — including competitors and counterfeiters.
• Levels of customisation, from light to heavy:
  1. Tight custom spacing and kerning of an existing face.
  2. Modify a few letters (a distinctive a, g, e, R, a cut terminal, a joined pair, a swapped dot).
  3. Redraw the whole word with a consistent logic (shared radius, stroke contrast, terminal angle).
  4. Draw from scratch on a system (e.g. built on a square grid, or with the symbol's curvature applied to the type).
• Warning: the further letterforms depart from familiar shapes, the more quickly they date and the harder they are to read.
• Reflect the symbol in the type subtly (a corner radius, a cut angle, a stroke ending) — echo, don't duplicate.
• Redraw and re-space existing marks for legibility when refreshing an old logo; making it impossible to reproduce by typing in any existing font is itself protective.

4. Letterform craft

• Spacing is optical, not metric. Equalise the area of space between letters, not the distance. Round letters (O, C) sit closer to neighbours than straight ones (H, I); diagonals (A, V, W) need kerning.
• Kern for the size of use. Spacing that works in a book heading may look loose at logo scale or on a building. Check key pairs (AV, To, LT, r., ye).
• Overshoot: round letters must extend slightly above cap height/x-height and below the baseline to look equal in height.
• Horizontal strokes thinner than verticals to look equal; thin strokes where they meet at junctions to avoid dark spots.
• Consistent stroke logic: contrast axis, terminal angles, corner radii and aperture should follow one rule.
• Tittles and dots (on i, j) are tempting substitution points; use them only if the substitute reads at small size and doesn't feel like a cliché.
• Small-size fixes: open apertures, larger counters, slightly heavier weight and looser spacing for a small-use version (optical size) of the wordmark.
• In SVG, final logo type must be outlined paths, not <text> — see svg-construction.md.

5. Lockups: symbol + type

• A lockup fixes the positions and relative sizes of all elements (symbol, wordmark, tagline). Once locked, they are never rearranged ad hoc.
• Create several lockups for different formats: horizontal (most common for headers/signage), stacked / vertical (square formats, social), symbol only (app icon, favicon, avatar), wordmark only, with tagline. Simplify complexity as size shrinks — a letterhead lockup may carry more than a mobile header.
• Balance: an ornate or detailed symbol pairs with plain, neutral type; a bold symbol pairs with a lighter type weight. The goal is complement, not contrast for its own sake.
• Alignment: align the symbol optically — typically centred on the cap height or x-height band, or spanning baseline to cap height/ascender. Check by eye; geometric centring often looks low.
• Spacing: the gap between symbol and wordmark is usually derived from an element of the mark (e.g. the width of a stem, the height of the x-height, or a fraction of the symbol's width) so it scales consistently.
• Tagline: significantly smaller, a lighter or contrasting style, aligned to the wordmark; define the size ratio and specify a version without it. Taglines rarely survive at small sizes — drop them there.
• Details like "bold vs slightly more bold" or a small kerning tweak aren't noticed consciously, but they are the difference between good and great.

6. Brand typefaces beyond the logo

• Corporate typography is often a different entity from the logo's letterforms.
• Body/text face: simple, highly readable, ideally a neutral sans with many weights; consider system/web availability and cost.
• Display/headline face: more freedom, providing contrast with the body text.
• Limit to two families in most identities (weights and italics within them are fine). More families dilute the voice.
• Specify web fallbacks and which faces are licensed for which uses.

7. Licensing and technical checks

• Free fonts are frequently personal-use only. A logo is commercial use: confirm the licence allows logo / trademark use (some licences restrict it or require a separate logo licence). Open-licence families (e.g. SIL Open Font License) are generally safe for logos.
• Check glyph coverage: accented characters for all the brand's languages, punctuation, @, &, numerals, currency symbols. Incomplete fonts silently substitute or show boxes.
• Prefer professional OpenType fonts with proper kerning tables.
• Once outlined in the logo file, the font is no longer needed to display the logo — but the brand typefaces still need licences for everyday use.

8. Common mistakes

• Using the default weight and spacing of a popular geometric sans with no modification — instantly generic.
• Too many typefaces in one mark (a script + a serif + a sans).
• Tracking lowercase text very wide (lowercase is designed to be read tight).
• Effects on type (outlines, drop shadows, bevels, distortion via horizontal/vertical scaling). Never scale type non-uniformly to fit — choose a condensed/extended width instead.
• Overused faces chosen because they are fashionable this year.
• Thin hairlines or tiny counters that close up at small sizes.
• Letters so customised the name becomes a puzzle.