Typography is important. Like, really important. A key yet under-appreciated component of the visual identity you and your customers see every time they interact with you. In many ways it’s the unsung hero of a brand.

Do you think anyone would take LinkedIn seriously if every time you opened it up you were greeted with post after post of comic sans? Hardly screams ‘serious work chat’ now does it.

So, creating your own typeface is just as important as your fancy new logo, or the photoshoot you just booked a fresh new trim in for. From headlines to H3’s, it’s premium real estate for showcasing who you are and what you’re all about. Let me show you.

How do you rebrand a Creative Agency?

For Good Good Double Good, we knew going into it that we wanted to capture the vibe of a modern-day twist on the retro advertising space. So I had to revisit a time before my time for a future time to have a good time.

Now it would be all well and good (there’ll be a lot of that word here) summing up my entire thought process into a neatly packaged paragraph, but as every designer knows, it rarely goes as smoothly as you want it to.

Luckily, I had already seen the entirety of Mad Men, so I only needed to rewatch all seven seasons once through (this is hard work) to get the juices flowing.

Stealing Marketing Ideas from Mad Men

I found myself yet again charmed by Don Draper’s ability to sell on the fly. Then I realised my job back in the day would have been hand drafting magnificent artworks just for them to be shot down by a small business owner because they didn’t like a particular word, or the colour of the background was two shades off, or the logo was too medium-sized – some things never change.

Whilst I do enjoy the rampant office happenings of the 60’s drama (minus the racism and misogyny), it’s the creative pitches that really stand out to me.

The set designers really took the time to capture the ad styling of the era and the writers came up with some fictional campaigns that would be considered excellent by real-world standards – even inspiring a campaign for Heinz called ‘Pass the Heinz’.

Typography is the Font of All Brand Knowledge

Now I know what you’re thinking, Jay, I came here expecting to learn about typography and you’ve just gone on about Mad Men for the last 4 paragraphs, and you’d be right.

But not for nothing. This is probably obvious to say, but I find my design process is really kickstarted when I feel inspired. I find something that relates to what I want to do: a website, a book, a person or, in this case, a TV Show. I indulge myself in it and then my mindset is inspired and motivated.

So, the primary research was completed and my imaginary office whiskey store was dry; it was time to put what I’d learnt into practice. Utilising rudimentary design elements like stroke and weight, coupled with a well-chosen typeface, is enough to create an interesting type styling that fits our theme of retro advertising.

The Rule of Three (or more…)

I’ve always had this philosophy that when something has three or more distinct elements at play, it appears more complex than it really is – you perceive it as more than the sum of its parts. In this case, that ‘something’ is type.

Now that I had the basis of the type style, it was time for the implementation. This is one of the most important and yet overlooked parts of the process for young designers. It’s easy to get the idea into your head that just because something looks interesting by itself means that you don’t have to put effort into displaying it.

There are a couple of ways I like to test my type. The first is simply writing out sentences in a kind of display ad/poster format. This gives me the opportunity to not only exercise my copywriting but also explore composition, which is important to see what works and what doesn’t.

(Sometimes I throw some images in there if it works… Mainly for my own amusement.)

Another way I like to test type is by recreating ads that already exist. I try to keep them relevant to the style I’m aiming for, so in this case, I sourced a retro Campari print ad and reimagined it in the GGDG styling along with updated imagery to give it that modern-day twist on the retro advertising space we’re trying to capture.

Where do I look?

If you find yourself uninspired, it’s good to take a second and look around.

Some great inspiration for help with this are the likes of TypeOne magazine, and sites like It’s Nice That. Both are really expansive publications that are full to the brim with fresh ideas, interesting colour palettes and forward-thinking type design.

I was inspired to implement a loose rule with the GGDG type in which the point size would increase with each descending line break. Creating an interesting visual and constantly evolving the focus of the type. This would also be really useful later on when animating the type.

Play that Font-y Music

So remember, we judge books by their covers and brands by their fonts. Typography is the perfect blend of what you’re saying and how you look – so it needs to be right. Find your inspiration, play around with it, and test, test, test. There’s enough Helvetica, go make something brilliant.

We’re Good Good Double Good, and we’re on a mission to make sure brands get the most out of their marketing, across research, creative, rollout & results.