The Secret Importance of Fonts

Fonts matter more than you may think!

When starting a business, people often think about the 4 P’s: product, price, placement, and promotion. However, your brand’s visual identity—i.e. its logo, color scheme, representative imagery, and typography—plays a key role in how people perceive you. Among these visual factors, font choice is one of the most subtle, yet powerful. It shapes how your audience perceives your brand and can foster trust, attention, readability, emotional tone, and can even lead to increased sales.

Keep reading to find out how fonts go deeper than the surface, and for tips on how to choose the best fonts to get your desired reaction out of your target audience.

Fonts and Their Business Impact

1. Appropriate Fonts Are Chosen More Often by Customers

A study published in Journal of Business Research found that when a brand name was shown in an appropriate font (one that matched the category expectations), consumers chose it twice as often compared to when the font was inappropriate. In a field experiment with chocolates, consumers picked the box with the “appropriate font” 75% of the time over one with an inappropriate font.

That’s some powerful evidence! This study proves that choosing the right font for your product or industry isn’t just about aesthetics. It materially influences consumer decisions.

2. Fonts Can Boost Emotional Response and Trust

A recent study by Monotype surveyed 400 people. They tested three contrasting fonts (FS Jack humanist sans, Gilroy geometric sans, Cotford serif) and found that changing the font alone could boost positive consumer responses by up to 13%. Among the findings:

• Using Cotford for the word “quality” raised perceived relevance by 13%, memorability by 10%, and trust by 9%.

• FS Jack increased perceptions of sincerity and confidence (up to 12%) when people saw words like “trust.”

• Gilroy Bold helped slogans stand out more, boosting “prominence” and “competitor standout.”

These kinds of perception shifts can translate into stronger brand recall and higher confidence among customers, which leads to a greater willingness to buy. Several other studies have also demonstrated the direct positive correlation between brand recognition and recall rates, and higher likelihood to make a purchase.

3. Reading Speed, Comprehension, and Readability

Another study looked at how different fonts affect reading speed and comprehension. Some key takeaways are that, while preferences for fonts aren’t always predictive of reading effectiveness, some fonts (such as EB Garamond and Montserrat) tend to increase reading speed for people older than 35.

People can also read, on average, 35% faster when using their personal “best” font versus their worst among a set. This means that font legibility isn’t necessarily an objective measure. It partially depends on the preferences of the individual, which means when it comes to choosing fonts for your brand, you have to carefully consider what appeals to your target demographic.

So, for marketing materials, signage, and websites, choosing a font that is legible and optimized for your audience matters. Slower or harder-to-read fonts increase friction rates, reduce comprehension, and can even lead to higher bounce rates or drop-off levels from your website.

Case Study: Domino’s Sans

For an actively unfolding case study, Domino’s recently rolled out a rebrand that primarily features a new tagline and a new, custom font, which they’ve dubbed “Domino’s Sans”.

Fonts demonstrably affect how trustworthy, reliable, and sincere consumers perceive your brand to be. Font choice (and overall typographic treatment) can contribute to revenue increases, especially for businesses that invest in consistent, well‐thought-out branding.

Why Small Businesses Especially Should Care

Small businesses don’t have the luxury of reputation that many large businesses and franchises do. Without a long, familiar legacy, customers are judging your brand’s trustworthiness based on observable, external factors before they decide whether or not to give your product or service a shot. Small businesses often can’t outrun first impressions. They might not have big advertising budgets, but they do have opportunities for branding to speak volumes.

• A customer sees your sign, website, packaging, or social media post for the first time. The font they see plays into how they perceive you. Is it as professional, trustworthy, modern, and credible? Or will they deem you outdated, amateurish, and cheap?

• On tight margins, small businesses need every edge they can get. If a font change helps improve conversions by a few percent, that could mean a lot more in net income than the cost of a font license or design work.

• Consistency matters. A small brand that uses mismatched fonts, or uses a decorative font for body text, may seem less trustworthy than one that has a clean, consistent typographic system.

Even beyond sales, legibility, accessibility (especially for those with visual impairments), and user comfort (online or offline) can all affect how long someone engages with your content online, whether they come back, and whether they recommend you.

Fonts that Match Your Industry and Personality

Okay, so now you understand that fonts should match your industry in order to attract customers and build their trust, but… now what? Feeling unsure about what kind of font is suited to your business?

Here are some guidelines and font suggestions based on industry and brand personality. These are not prescriptive, but should give you some ideas to build on.

Practical Tips for Small Business Owners: Do’s and Don’ts

Here are some actionable things to consider:

• Do audience research: Who are your customers? What are their age groups? Reading preferences? Cultural background? Fonts that work well in one demographic may not perform well with another.

• Legibility above all: If people struggle to read your text, you’re losing them. Good levels of contrast, a sufficient size, and appropriate line spacing are essential.

• Pair wisely: It’s best to stick to two or three fonts in your brand identity (one for headings/logo, one for body text, and one for accents). Make sure they each work for their intended purpose and don’t clash with each other.

• Consistency: Use your fonts (and specific parameters, like spacing and line weight) consistently across all of your touchpoints, including signage, packaging, social media posts, and printed materials. This builds recognizability, which fosters trust.

• Test before committing: Try A/B tests using mockups. For example, show the same page or ad with two font options and see which performs better. You can assess this based on the click rate and time spent on each page online.

• Don’t overuse decorative fonts: They can be great for logos or headlines, but they often reduce readability in body text.

• Consider licensing and originality: Using a well‐designed but distinct or custom font can help you stand out. However, ensure that it’s properly licensed to avoid potential copyright infringements.

Smarter Branding with Tidy-B

Feeling overwhelmed by all this font and branding work?

Tidy-B is an AI-powered all-in-one branding platform that handles everything from brand strategy and font selection to logo design and marketing assets. Just answer a few simple questions, and the AI tool will generate a safe-to-use, custom font combination and style guide for your brand.

All fonts recommended by Tidy-B, in any language, are verified for commercial use, so you can brand confidently without copyright concerns. Plus, our industry-specific recommendations make the service incredibly convenient.

Conclusion

Font choice is more than just a design nicety. It’s actually a highly strategic element of branding and marketing. For small businesses where first impressions often count more heavily, fonts set the tone, foster trust, and affect how people respond emotionally to your product or service. Studies show that appropriate fonts can double the preference that someone has toward your brand, shift customer perceptions by up to 13%, and significantly improve reading speed.

If you invest even a bit of thought into your typography by matching it to your industry and personality, making sure it’s legible and consistent, and testing it when possible, you’re likely to get a good return on that investment in terms of brand strength, trust, and ultimately, sales.