Looking for a Corporate Typeface

Written on 2011-01-06 • conversation (4)

Since February 2010, I have been running my own design company. As it goes, I have not yet taken the time to properly design my own identity—because client work always comes first, right?

I think that by the one year celebration of my company next month, I should at least have decided on some very basic stuff. One of the things that I would like to do by then is choose the corporate typeface I will use in my communication. These are the candidates on my shortlist:

Communication of course, also includes digital communication. It is important that I can find a typeface which I can use for stationery and for the design of my website and other web related projects that need similar branding. After doing a little research on websites like Typekit, Fontdeck and Fonts.com, I came to the staggering conclusion that only one of these typefaces is easily available via a webfont serving site: FF Dagny on Typekit. Which is an extraordinary, beautiful typeface.

If anyone has any great suggestions for fonts that also have an awesome digital counterpart, I’d be happy to hear about those suggestions in the comments! Meanwhile, my search continues. I am not satisfied with the idea that my final choice has to depend solely on technical limitations.

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There’s always “older” alternatives like cufon or maybe even sifr, no? My vote would go out to FF Nexus Sans, I think it’s gorgeous, but TL;DR applies to the license and I don’t know if you’re even allowed to embed it in a website.

Bram Van der Sype · Thu 6 Jan 2011 · #

Hmm, I don’t think the license allows for serving it on a website, since it is not in the FontFont Webfonts list. I appreciate the suggestion to use something like Cufon or Sifr, but those technologies already so much feel like a thing of the past. I’d like to make a very good choice now, one that can last a while—especially if I’m spending €500+ on a good font. Not something I’d like to repeat next year, unless I can bill it to a client ;).

Xavier · Thu 6 Jan 2011 · #

You could select a font for print, and then a complementary one for online. It would broaden your options a lot.

Toon · Mon 17 Jan 2011 · #

I realise that, but I would like to think of the branding of my own company as a research project to find out what is possible. I would like to do things that I probably cannot do with a client, hence the choice for a typeface that exists as a font with a print license and a web font complement.

Meanwhile, Hoefler & Frere-Jones have let me know that they are working on a web variant of Whitney, which of course makes me very happy!

Xavier · Mon 17 Jan 2011 · #