Fonts & Styling

BACKGROUND

The purpose of a secondary font is to support a brand’s visual identity and help set the overall tone/tone of voice.

Not only is selecting a font important, but it is also essential to develop a house-style that can be applied across various use-cases: messaging, straplines, headings, copy, instructions, supporting information, etc. For each use-case, a style should include font-subset, font-weight, letter-spacing, line height, etc.

Very little of this was delivered by Brave Creative which failed to specify the type foundry, the font-family or font-subsets to be used. This is significant as many type foundries have published DIN fonts. Each subtly differs, with many including multiple font-subsets and font-weights within each subset.

As a result, print agencies commissioned by Rose have used DIN fonts from various type foundries and appear to have adopted their own interpretation of a house-style which has led to inconsistencies across your marketing materials.

Font selection criterion

The objective was to find a din font-set that met the following criteria:

Provides various font-subsets and font-weights within each subset that allow flexibility in the design of the rose font-pallet.
It can be used across all channels – print, signage, banner and poster designs across social media, advertising, etc. And the web.
Be reasonably close to DIN fonts currently in use to avoid a jarring transition from existing artwork to the new designs during the transition period.
Provides a font-subset/font-weight that is closely approximated within Microsoft Office default fonts so it can be used for emails, reports, invoices etc. And not look too dissimilar.*
Be commercially available for use across all channels from a trusted publishing house.

* Note: custom fonts can be installed into MS Office, however, this would them to be installed on a company wide basis and licensing would likely be expensive.

Selected font: urw DIN

After revewing numerous DIN fonts, URW DIN from the URW Type Foundry, published by Adobe was chosen.

There are multiple font-subspets and font-weights with the collection and they can be viewed at: Adobe Fonts / URW-DIN (This page is quite useful as it lets you play around with the fonts and put in your own text).

Initial Font Pallet

Based on the criteria detailed above, the following fonts-subsets and font-weights have been selected:

urw din

font-weight: 200 (light)

a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q u r s t u v w x y z
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q U R S T U V W X Y Z
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 ! @ £ $ % ^ & * ( ) _ – + = { } ?

font-weight: 400 (default/normal)

a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q u r s t u v w x y z
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q U R S T U V W X Y Z
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 ! @ £ $ % ^ & * ( ) _ – + = { } ?

font-weight: 700 (bold)

a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q u r s t u v w x y z
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q U R S T U V W X Y Z
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 ! @ £ $ % ^ & * ( ) _ – + = { }

font-weight: 800 (extra-bold/black)

a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q u r s t u v w x y z
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q U R S T U V W X Y Z
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 ! @ £ $ % ^ & * ( ) _ – + = { }

urw din-semi-condensed

font-weight: 200 (light)

a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q u r s t u v w x y z
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q U R S T U V W X Y Z
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 ! @ £ $ % ^ & * ( ) _ – + = { } ?

font-weight: 400 (default/normal)

a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q u r s t u v w x y z
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q U R S T U V W X Y Z
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 ! @ £ $ % ^ & * ( ) _ – + = { }

font-weight: 700 (bold)

a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q u r s t u v w x y z
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q U R S T U V W X Y Z
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 ! @ £ $ % ^ & * ( ) _ – + = { } ?

font-weight: 800 (extra-bold/black)

a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q u r s t u v w x y z
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q U R S T U V W X Y Z
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 ! @ £ $ % ^ & * ( ) _ – + = { } ?

urw din-condensed

font-weight: 200 (light)

abcdefghijklmnopqurstuvwxyz
ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQURSTUVWXYZ
1234567890!@£$%^&*( )_ – + = { } ?

font-weight: 400 (default/normal)

a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q u r s t u v w x y z
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q U R S T U V W X Y Z
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 ! @ £ $ % ^ & * ( ) _ – + = { } ?

font-weight: 700 (bold)

a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q u r s t u v w x y z
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q U R S T U V W X Y Z
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 ! @ £ $ % ^ & * ( ) _ – + = { } ?

font-weight: 800 (extra-bold/black)

a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q u r s t u v w x y z
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q U R S T U V W X Y Z
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 ! @ £ $ % ^ & * ( ) _ – + = { } ?

Developing a house-style

Taking the selected URW DIN fonts, the next step is to develop a house-style that can be applied across all brands, channels and use-cases.

Tone of voice

The tone of voice is an important part of brand identity. The convention adopted on the Recycling and Skip Hire website for heading, titles, straplines, key messaging etc. has been applied to the house-style options shown below.

Headings and titles: uppercase – providing an assertive stop, look, pay attention tone.
Straplines and key messaging: lowercase – providing a more friendly, softly spoken tone.

Initial style options

Four style options have been defined:

Option I: based upon URW DIN-condensed
Option II: based upon URW DIN-semi-condensed
Option III: based upon URW DIN
Option IV: based upon Cedora

Notes:

Option II most closely matches existing onsite signage and option IV has been included as a comparison.