When it comes to printing high-quality packaging for your product, it’s important that people know what your product is right away. Nearly every piece of printed packaging features visible text of some kind. In designing your packaging, you want to make sure that you choose a text font that is unique and recognizable while still matching your brand and being legible.
Some people may just go with the first font they come across or just pick one they think looks good and call it a day. But choosing the right font for your package printing really matters! Here are some important things to consider when it comes to selecting your font.
Your font should be noticeable, not easily lost in the other elements of your packaging. The most important words should be the boldest and largest, while less important details can be somewhat less pronounced. Don’t waste a great slogan or message with a font that doesn’t get noticed!
Once people notice your package messaging, you need to keep them engaged long enough to figure out what your product is all about. For product descriptions or important information, don’t print with a font that’s difficult to read or causes letters to be easily mistaken for other letters. It may sound silly, but this actually happens quite a lot when people aren’t careful!
This refers to varying up text or font areas to help differentiate various sections of a printed material, making it more accessible and easier to read.
The shape, size, and angles of your font play into the overall feelings your packaging will evoke in the person who sees it. Do you want to convey a strong, sturdy, no-nonsense brand? Then maybe you should avoid cursive fonts and opt for something bold, squared, and symmetrical. Or, are you looking to print packaging that promotes a playful, fun, light-hearted product? Perhaps you would print an organic, more hand-written style font. It’s up to you to decide, but keep in mind that you really are conveying emotion with your font style!
Boring fonts can lead to the eyes becoming fatigued and wanting to look elsewhere, but strong fonts keep them engaged. At the same time, if your font is too wild and hard to comprehend, you’ll also lose eyes quickly.
Finally, many brands have gone to great lengths to become synonymous with a certain font type. This approach can help you standardize numerous marketing materials and make your branding more consistent across all platforms. Don’t vary too much with your printed packaging.
So, we’ve covered a few things to keep in mind when choosing a font. But now, what are some of the best fonts for packaging? With our many years of helping design and print packaging at Sun Print Solutions, we have been able to compile a list of some of the most commonly used font types that check all the boxes for most packaging needs. Will any of these styles work for your packaging project?
Script is a font type that uses various curls, swirls, and other loop designs to mimic calligraphy. Script fonts are considered elegant and aesthetically pleasing. It’s great for titles and other short-but-important text but doesn’t work well for large sections of text because it’s a bit too fancy for conveying important information, and harder to read when strung out across many words.
Serif has a projection at the end of each stroke, and is perhaps the single most-used font in the modern world. One well-known example of a Serif font is Times New Roman, which is known as an authoritative, professional font.
Sans Serif fonts lack the projections at the end of each stroke, bringing a bit more of a modern look to the text. Many present-day companies lean on Sans Serif variations for all their marketing materials.
So if we haven’t made it clear yet, font is something you definitely want to get right! It may seem like a simple step in the package design process, but it can make or break the effectiveness of your final print.
Once you’ve decided on a packaging font you like, there are a few final things you’ll want to make sure you’ve got right before you send it off for printing.
Never sacrifice substance and readability for style. It’s possible to take care of both with a good font!
For printing projects, graphic designers recommend not mixing more than three fonts (not counting your logo). This helps ensure the readability of the package, but it also helps ensure design integrity.
If you’ve ever looked at a product and skipped quickly on to a competitor’s product for no apparent reason, the chances are good that something in the packaging design didn’t feel comfortable to your eye. Use too many fonts in your design, and that’s what could happen.
In the graphic design and packaging printing world, experts know that some fonts include a known “hands-off” warning. But if you’re doing your own design (or using a novice graphic artist), you might not realize that certain fonts can sound a death knell for sales.
Without a very compelling reason, stay away from fonts such as these — even if you personally think they’re awesome.
We could go on with this list, but to be safe, take a moment to check with a graphic artist about your fonts of choice, or do a quick internet search to see what the design community thinks about it. It’s worth doing a little research!
Here at Sun Print Solutions, we help our customers ensure they have the best possible design for their purposes, especially when it comes to labels and packaging. We’ve been fortunate enough to have printed some very successful packaging for some great products. Once you’ve settle on your font and the rest of your design, Sun Print Solutions can help bring it to life.
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