While your messaging is crucial, every aspect of your print marketing design matters, too—including your typography choices. While it may seem insignificant, the fonts, overall marketing layout and design choices can make or break your print marketing campaign.
When typography is applied correctly, you have a high-functioning print marketing ad that boosts credibility and increases brand awareness. When done improperly, customers may think that your product or service isn’t legitimate, and it could have the opposite effect than what you’re intending.
With years of experience in the industry, our Signature Graphics team is here to explain typography guidelines in print marketing to ensure every campaign has a higher chance of succeeding.
The Fundamentals of Typography in Print Marketing
In print marketing, typography can mean the type of font you select, the sizing you use and even the overall design. These are the different components of typography:
- Typeface - This is the type of font you use: serif (with a little tail on the letters), sans-serif (no tail on the letters) and decorative (fancy font type).
- Hierarchy - This is the way you organize your content to help guide readers along the page.
- Contrast - How the different elements of your design collaborate on the pages with colors, shades, sizing and more.
- Consistency - The more consistent your print marketing piece, the better it works to show readers how credible and legitimate your brand is.
- Alignment - How your print marketing ads are centered and aligned on the page plays into typography and how your message comes across.
- White Space - Using white space strategically ensures that you take up just enough space without making your audience feel like they just walked into a cluttered room.
- Color - Using color cohesively ensures that your audience feels certain emotions and responds to your message in the way that you want them to.
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Selecting Proper Typefaces for Print Advertisements
Selecting the proper typefaces for your print advertisement ensures that your brand stays consistent and offers the professional or casual appearance you desire. Whoever your audience is, matching the typeface to their demographics (age, location, etc.) can help immensely.
Use a Clear Structure and Content Hierarchy
Using a clear structure and content hierarchy is essential to the typography of your print marketing materials. Without structure, your audience will have a chaotic mess to sift through and will likely give up reading before getting very far. Adding a structure ensures that the overall organization is linear and guides the reader where they need to go.
Consider Readability Across Print Marketing Media
Another component to consider is readability across print marketing media. Basically, you want your marketing materials to have cohesiveness and share similar appearances so you don’t confuse your consumers. If the overall appearance, colors or typeface are different, your brand will easily lose credibility. On top of that, you want your audience to read the material in an organized fashion. If it’s hard to follow, that’s not great for the success of your campaign.
Organize Layout and Spacing for Effective White Space
Organizing your layout and spacing with white space in mind ensures that your audience doesn’t get overwhelmed by the content in front of them. Using larger headings at the top and getting smaller as you go is helpful for creating a more linear reading experience. Using margins, bullet points and different alignments properly can enhance the overall layout and effectiveness of your print material.
Related Blog: How to Use White Space in Print Marketing
Keep a Consistent Brand Voice and Identity
Staying true to roots is essential. If you stray from your brand guidelines, your audience will be confused and likely question whether you’re a legitimate company. Maintaining consistency and your original brand identity throughout all your campaigns (both digital and print) creates better trust between your consumer and the company.
Typography Mistakes to Avoid in Print Marketing
Now that you understand how typography works with print marketing, it’s important to know what mistakes to avoid:
- Ineffective contrast and font colors
- Spacing and alignment inconsistencies
- Wrong fonts for the print marketing type or context
- Using too many fonts or clashing typefaces
- Not staying consistent with brand guidelines
Signature Typography and Print Marketing Services
Learning typography guidelines in print marketing and applying them correctly can positively alter the success of your advertising. While it may seem insignificant compared to some other aspects of your print ad, the little things add up—and doing it correctly can boost credibility and overall ROI.
If you’re ready to find typography and print marketing services, our team at Signature Graphics can help you get started. Our design team, Kobalt Design, excels at creating a unique design that incorporates your brand identity with your marketing goals. Reach out today to get started.
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