14. Letters and symbols

The design that goes into a brand is rather important and will obviously incorporate letters or symbols in the majority of cases. All font families have a specific look and feel that they communicate and their message can even change if changed from bold to italics. So what do certain typefaces communicate and how can they change a message received by a consumer?

• Dole has a simple design consisting of a red sans-serif with colors that seem fresh and a sunburst that relates to their product.

• The current Absolut Vodka design was created by TBWA and uses what appears to be a bold sans-serif while the rest of the copy is in dark cursive figures, which really draws the eye to "Absolut" which is color coded for flavor

• Adidas has a nice lowercase sans-serif in all black which ties the whole thing together. The triangle-like logo represents a mountain and the rugged, adventurous life that Adidas encourages.

• Campell's has a sloped sans-serif which has been a part of the long running tradition of soup that has established it as an icon everyone recognizes.

So it appears that it may be a bit more popular to currently use sans-serif fonts that call attention to their names. Older designs, such as cursive like figure or serif fonts seem to be related to products that have been around for a longer period of time and have history to their name.