The importance of typography in PR design.
Typography is one, if not the most influential part of PR design. My experience with typography has shown me just how much audiences underestimate the power of choosing the right font. The right font can communicate specific parts of your brand to your audience in ways other aspects of a design cannot. As PR professionals, we must be able to analyze the meanings of various fonts, and the personalities they each communicate to different audiences. One of my favorite ways to learn about different font personalities is through a typography game, Type Connection. This game features a few different fonts, and you are asked to pair them based on their personalities. After you pair two fonts, you send them on a date to see if they are compatible. After a few rounds of playing, I have been able to decipher different fonts and decide their ability to go together on design elements.
In the first round of Type Connection, you are asked to choose a font based on its specific personality description.
A screenshot of my first page of Type Connection.
In this round, I chose to my main character to be ITC Stone Sans. With this font's personality being described as "I work at a one-stop, mom-and-pop copy shop", ITC Stone Sands sounds charming and available to collaborate with many different fonts, no matter their attitude or description.
Next, Type Connection asks you to choose how your font will be dating. There are many different motivations behind why people date, and Type Connection allowed you to choose your selected font's dating goals based on its personality.
A screenshot of my second page on Type Connection.
I chose ITC Stone Sands to look for a match that, "Explores the Past". This can mean many things, but with this font's fun and comforting nature, this could mean connecting with a font that feels familiar to them.
And finally, the pairing! Given ITC Stone Sands's nature, and my chosen motive the font pairs perfectly with Futura. Futura and ITC Stone Sands are two fonts with opposite personalities. Their relative shapes paired with their difference in nature give them a sense of relatability that they don't necessarily have on their own.
A screenshot of my screen of the final page on Type Connection.
Fonts and typography are fundamental pieces of the large puzzle that is PR design. Type Connection is just one way I was able to further my understanding of typography. In general, we should strive to be able to choose fonts that complement each other but also, give separate perspectives on the story your brand is telling. To be able to communicate to your specific audience, you must choose fonts your audience will relate to. Mastering typography comes with practice and feedback from your specific brand. It is important to be able to walk the line between keeping brand consistency and catering to your audience. However, the line doesn't seem so fine with practice and understanding of typography and its leverage in design.
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