Choose a brand typeface: matches personality, readable at all sizes, sufficient Vietnamese diacritics

Typography is the longest-lasting identity decision in a brand system. Color can shift with the season, and imagery can change with each campaign. But once a typeface is printed on packaging, signage, and a website, changing it is very expensive. That is why this choice should follow three clear priorities: personality first, then legibility of each character, and finally a complete set of Vietnamese diacritics.

Typography is the visible language

Ellen Lupton, author of Thinking with Type, writes that “typography is what language looks like.” This is not decoration. Before a reader understands a word, their eyes have already picked up signals from the shape of the letters. A serif typeface suggests permanence and deep roots. A geometric sans-serif suggests modernity and precision. A handwritten display typeface suggests craft and a personal touch.

The question is not which typeface is more beautiful. The question is which one fits what your brand is trying to communicate. A dental clinic using free-flowing handwriting, or a handicraft workshop using a geometric sans-serif. Both would create a conflict of signals, even though both typefaces are perfectly good in their proper context.

Typography is the shape of language.

Typography is what language looks like.

Ellen Lupton, Thinking with Type

First step: read the brand personality before opening the font list

Before entering any font library, three questions about the brand need to be answered. First: if this brand were a person, how would they speak, formally or informally, cautiously or decisively? Second: where is the target customer at the most important touchpoint, reading on a small phone or viewing signage from a distance? Third: does the brand want to stand close to or far from competitors in the industry?

After obtaining the answers, categorizing by typeface helps narrow down choices more quickly. Classic serifs (Garamond, Cormorant) are suitable for brands that embody traditional values, heritage, or premium quality aimed at lasting elegance. Modern serifs (Playfair, Libre Baskerville) balance authority and accessibility. Geometric sans-serifs (Futura, Jost) fit technology, healthcare, or any industry that prioritizes clarity and modernity. Humanist sans-serifs (Nunito, Source Sans) are more approachable, suitable for brands that want to engage rather than impose.

Legibility: check at extreme sizes

Legibility is different from readability (the ease of reading a long passage continuously). Legibility is the ability to tell individual characters apart, especially at small sizes or from a distance. For a brand, the legibility test must happen at two extremes: displayed on a 5-inch phone screen at 11pt, and on signage viewed from 5 meters away.

Points to check carefully. Can you tell apart a capital “I,” a lowercase “l,” and the numeral “1” in the same context? This matters especially for brand names and email addresses. Does the “rn” pair, set together, read as “m”? Is the x-height (the height of lowercase letters relative to capitals) large enough to read comfortably at small sizes? Is the inner space of each character open enough, or does it clog when printed small?

A typeface that looks beautiful in a catalogue sometimes fails this test completely. This is where priorities must be clear: a typeface that cannot be read at small sizes should not be the brand typeface. That holds true no matter how refined it looks in a presentation file.

Vietnamese diacritics: a criterion not to be overlooked for Vietnamese brands

Vietnamese uses the Latin Extended Additional character set, with roughly 134 base characters, including complex diacritic combinations such as ợ, ươ, ặ, ẫ, ỡ. Many fonts that are well designed for English lack these characters entirely. Some fonts include them but handle the marks poorly, for example a dot-below mark placed in the wrong position, or a circumflex colliding with the tone mark above it.

The real-world consequences of ignoring this criterion. On a website, the browser automatically substitutes a fallback font for missing characters, breaking the brand identity at its most important touchpoint. In design files, characters are replaced with small rectangles or other glyphs, which is especially risky when you send files to a printer that does not have the full font installed. In a mobile app, missing characters can push the system to its default font, undoing the entire visual hierarchy you designed.

A simple way to check: paste the string “Thương hiệu Việt cần đủ dấu: ợ ươ ặ ẫ ỡ ề ổ ắ” into your design software with the font you are considering. If any character looks different in shape or spacing, that is a sign the font does not fully support Vietnamese.

Build a type system: two families, one purpose for each family

Most brand systems work well with two typefaces. The first type, often called the display typeface, handles headlines, brand names in applications, and touchpoints that need to make a strong impression. This type is allowed to have a more distinct personality and can be more complex in shape because it is displayed at larger sizes and readers do not need to read continuously.

The second family handles body text, captions, digital product interfaces, and every long-reading context. The selection criteria for this family are legibility and controlled neutrality. “Beautiful” should not be the priority here, because its job is to convey information without creating friction.

Once two typefaces are chosen, the next step is to establish scale, weight, and spacing. These three factors determine over 70% of the perceived professionalism of a design page. A well-set ordinary typeface will look more professional than a good typeface set carelessly.

Common mistakes to actively avoid

• Choosing a font because it looks good in a specific context and then applying it throughout the system without checking other applications.
• Using more than three typefaces in the name of “richness,” when in fact it creates visual conflict.
• Not checking commercial licenses. Some free fonts only allow personal use and prohibit commercial purposes.
• Skipping font embedding in the PDF sent to the printer, which leads to fonts being substituted in the printed result.
• Choosing a font that is too common and lacks distinction, making the brand look like hundreds of other brands using the same default font.

Typography is an infrastructure decision for the entire identity system, not just an aesthetic one. Getting it right from the start, based on the three criteria in the correct order of priority, saves a great deal in rework costs. It is a bigger saving than any other item in the brand-building process.