Know-How Exchange : Branding

Lots of opinions but no real rules. You can't go wrong with Times for both internal and/or external. First test ... is it readable!!!

Times
Possibly overused but a good basic serif font nonetheless. Originally designed for newspaper use, Times, Times New Roman, and other variations are designed to be easily readable and legible as body text — a neutral font.

Hope this helps,

Steve

also, for shorter copy in a slide presentation, a sans serif font works well.

Helvetica
One of the most popular and confusing typefaces, this san serif font was originally designed by Max Miedinger in 1957. The introduction of Helvetica Neue brought some order to the chaos with more design consistency among the various weights that had developed throughout the 60s and 70s. Helvetica works well for many applications from body text to billboards.

There is no general rule!

The question I have is why would they need to be different?

If you have a corporate typeface typically used for headings and or another one for body copy, then why not use those?

If you would follow "general rule" you would become a general brand.
The only rules are those of readability and legibility.
Follow those on Wikipedia, and you'll see what I mean.
It all depends on the type of presentations you give.
Are they close range for small crowds, or in large auditoriums with many people etc.
Check out the basic differences between serif and non-serif fonts and as for the style, go for those who suit best the type of brand you are: contemporary, conservative, innovative, timeless etc.

one benefit of standardizing on a single font for internal and external communications is that it makes it easier to cut and paste information between different documents, presentations, and so forth.

For example, company history information might be appropriate for both internal and external information.

Dear me_leah,

In typography, there is really only ONE general rule: legibility.

Years ago, David Carson, a famous surfing graphic designer,
set a "RayGun" magazine article in Zapf Dingbats. It looked great, but it was illegible; so as a piece of type-based communication, it failed miserably.

For corporate typefaces, use two contrasting fonts, but certainly no more than three. I once worked with a client who had 13 type faces on an ad the size of a cigarette packet. Please. Don't do this.

The point of Powerpoint is to communicate simply. I was going to mention the Seth Godin rule on slides, but BARQ beat me to it.

If you have slides that you then read out, all you've done is wasted people's time. To make a presentation strand out, surprise people.

Does the font HAVE to be the same? Well, yes and no.

If you main corporate font is a serif bold face, you can mix things up within the font family weight-wise. But don't mix like fonts (serifs with serif or san serifs with san serifs). It's generally bad form to do this, and as a rule, it's better to contrast a font such as Galliard or Garamond with Futurer or Myriad.

One serif. On san serif. Then stop.

If there's a house style in place, my best advice (based on 25 years of graphic design experience) is to stick with the program.

Unless you're a designer, you're not paid to make value judgements on the corporate style. You may not LIKE this opinion, but tough. Designers are paid to make those value judgements and unless you number among their rank, you are not.

True, you have the right to an opinion, but you do not have the right to fly in the face of best practice of the corporate look.

Ever. Whether you like it or not. This is a battle i've been waging for over 20 years and it never fails to amaze me just how "creative" people think they are, while all the while moaning that they have to much work to do. But give them access to a Mac or a PC and some fonts and MS Word and suddenly, they have time to do their job, AND THE DESIGNER'S

Stunning.

In corporate communication, whether internal OR external, stick with the guidelines. They are there to reinforce visual consistency.

Please, if you want to be "creative" do it on your own time, not on your company's time, and NOT when a any in-house designer your company may have can do the job for you, and do it better and faster.

I urge this because REGARDLESS of there being a Mac or a PC on every desk, on which there are all manner of programs and lord knows how many funky, trendy, or hip and with it type faces, unless you've been hired to do design work, don't.

Having access to all this equipment and software does NOT make anyone a designer any more than my having a driver's license makes me an Indy 500 race car driver, or any more than my watching Grey's Anatomy makes me a surgeon.

Lots of people affect a knowledge of design, but few of them have any knowledge and fewer still are trained to do use that knowledge to create consistent results, time after time.

I hope this helps.

Gary Bloomer
Wilmington, DE, USA