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Core Values & Fonts
So the next thing here is uncovering your core values. So your core values as a company are basically your beliefs that you hold true within your business. These are usually one worded beliefs and in the worksheets that you guys have online, and here, I have a little exercise for you to really help you uncover what your core values are. So there's just a few lists of them here on the next slide. There's things like honesty, loyalty, reliability, community, courage, fitness, respect, open mindedness... Really take the time to think of what those one worded beliefs are and try to come up with at least three or five. And when you come up with those three or five you really center your business around that and you look to your core values every time you're trying to make a business decision. So for example, here we have TONL. TONL, again, is a diverse stock photography business. Okay, that's exactly what we are. How we do this that we display images and tell the stories of those people. So...
what does that mean when you think about core values? So for us that is community, culture, and progress. Everything that we do embodies that. From the narratives that we share, to the types of collaborations that we do with different brands. We make sure that they're progressive. That they have a cultural element to them, and of course that they represent the community and if you're being really diligent in deciding that, just know that choosing your core values can take a long time. To give you perspective, I believe it took myself and my business partner about two hours to come up with these three words. So I challenge you to really take that seriously because again you're going to be guided by your core values whenever you're making business decisions. So the next thing I want to go over here are your fonts. So your fonts basically have to do with the aesthetic of your brand... and your font pallet is just another intricate part of that. You know it really tells people from a coloring stand point who you are and it aligns with your logo as well. It just makes your business very recognizable. That if you have a lot of varying fonts associated with your brand it doesn't really create that loyalty or that recognition. So lets think about the different types of fonts that are out there. There are actually three. There are three types of fonts. So one of them is called Serif. The other is called Sans serif. And then the other one is called script. Again those are the three different fonts that you can reference when you're trying to decide on what type of font pallet that you want to use for your brand. So lets start off with Serif. So to describe what Serif is, its basically a topography. Where there is like a small little line attached to the end of a stroke attached to a letter or symbol. So you can see that here in this example here. Serif fonts to be honest are old school. So you're not finding that they're the normal fonts that people are using right now. So when you think of Serif you're thinking of like Times Roman. So not Times New Roman but Times Roman. Its definitely very professional. But San serif again is just currently what's more on trend. So examples of Serif fonts would include again Times Roman, Currier, New Century School Book, and Palatino. But again it really depends on you and your aesthetic and what you what to portray, so this could really work for you. Another typography out there is called Sans Serif. And so Sans is actually French for without. So this particular type face is actually without the small line attached to the end of a stroke in a letter or symbol. Popular Sans serif fonts include Helvetica, Avant-Garde, Arial, and Geneva. Again these are more modern type of fonts that are a little more aesthetically pleasing. And then the last type of font here is called Script. And you know script fonts are fonts that really simulate handwriting. It adds a nice human touch to digital print designs. Script fonts are not really best for content and writing paragraphs but they really work well for posters, headers, and titles. They definitely are not for every brand. So if you want to fit that into your companies persona just make sure that you understand your audience. It doesn't work for everyone. So different examples of the script font would be Lucida, and Papyrus, and Lobster. So all of those fonts you can definitely find them on some of the resources I have here like dafont.com, fontsquirrel.com, and googlefonts.com as well. So those are different resources that I've found whenever I've needed to create a font. And then some of the platforms out there, like Adobe Photoshop, they have a whole list of different fonts that you can choose from there. So it really is just to your discretion. [Female Audience Member] I don't know if you're going to get into it later but when it comes to fonts and branding, can you talk a little bit about choosing a font, owning a font, how to not steal a font? When you're paying for it, or when you don't need to pay for it? So you're just trying to figure out when it's credible for you to use? [Female Audience Member] Right. Well, I would say that when it comes to fonts, as long as you're not selling it then you have the right to use it. So I wouldn't try to go an trademark a font, because you don't own it. So in that situation, if you're trying to trademark your business, or you're trying to trademark your logo, make sure that it doesn't have that sort of a font style. Or, depending on where you buy the font, perhaps they could have some regulations where they say what type of use cases. So I would just pay attention to that because some people you do have to pay a certain license to use it in a different capacity. So I would check for that. So hopefully that answers your question. Okay, so moving on here. (clears throat) So it's just important for you, as we wrap up talking about fonts, just to stick to one or two go-to fonts. For example, for our business we use Proxima Nova, we use an entire palette that they have but sometimes we dip into a Bebas Neue. They both are very similar in style, but what people know is that we never break away from that. So you're not going to see any of my businesses randomly through out Times New Roman, or randomly throw out Garabon because it just doesn't align with our brand at all. So just think about what that looks like when you're being haphazard with the fonts that you're using. Again, it just doesn't make you recognizable to your audience. So just to identify which one works best for you and stick to it, that's the key.
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