Designers tend to ignore a good typeface
Typography does more than look good—it speaks. It shapes perception, guides attention, and carries your brand’s voice into every corner of the world. But when designing for a global audience, sleek visuals alone don’t cut it. Font legibility becomes mission-critical.
The Challenge of Multilingual Typography
Fonts aren’t universal. A typeface that reads effortlessly in English can fall apart when applied to Arabic, Chinese, or Devanagari scripts. Latin-based fonts lean on ascenders, descenders, and spacing. Arabic demands fluid ligatures. CJK scripts rely on balanced strokes. Devanagari needs precise vowel alignment. Overlooking these differences? That’s how brands lose clarity—and credibility—across borders.
What Really Affects Readability
Each script has its own rules. For Latin: x-height and spacing matter. For Arabic: seamless connections and smart ligatures. For CJK: stroke precision avoids clutter. For Devanagari: vowel placement is everything. The solution? Choose a multilingual font system that’s built for cross-script harmony—one that keeps your brand visually consistent, globally.
Culture Reads Fonts Too
Typography isn’t just functional—it’s cultural. Serif fonts feel authoritative in Western contexts but may fall flat in East Asia, where clean sans-serifs dominate. In the Middle East, typographic tone must respect calligraphic heritage while staying modern. Knowing this isn’t extra credit—it’s essential. Fonts carry meaning, and the wrong one speaks volumes.
A typeface isn’t just how your brand looks—it’s how it speaks before you say a word.
— Arian Hashemi
The Arabic Typeface Factor
Designing for Arabic isn’t just translation—it’s precision branding. Arabic script is dynamic, fluid, and deeply tied to cultural identity. It requires more than simply picking a matching font; it demands balance, rhythm, and respect for calligraphic heritage—especially when paired with Latin type.
We saw this challenge firsthand during our work with ADCOOP, where we reimagined their entire bilingual brand identity. The brief? Create a unified system where Arabic and English typography didn’t just coexist—they belonged to the same brand voice. That meant carefully selecting an Arabic typeface that felt both modern and grounded in regional sensibilities, while pairing it with a Latin counterpart that echoed the same structure, tone, and weight.
Every asset—from in-store signage to shelf labels to digital ads—needed to communicate clearly in both scripts, without favouring one over the other. And we didn’t just apply fonts; we crafted a typographic system that supported legibility, tone, and consistency across every customer touchpoint.
That’s the difference between translation and true localisation. At Brand Husl, we don’t just build brands that work globally—we make sure they read globally, too.
Typography is the voice of your brand in print and pixels—get it wrong, and your message gets lost before it’s even read.
— Arian Hashemi
Typeface Creation: The Craft of Precision
Designing a typeface isn’t just art—it’s architecture. Every curve, counter, and connection is a deliberate decision. Good type doesn’t happen by accident. It’s built. Measured. Tested. Then reworked—because when letters become your brand’s voice, precision is non-negotiable.
Creating a typeface means obsessing over details most people will never consciously notice: the tension in a curve, the width of a stem, the negative space between characters. It’s about legibility, yes—but also about energy, tone, and control. The right typeface carries the brand’s intent without saying a word. The wrong one? It confuses, dilutes, or disappears.
At Brand Husl, we don’t default to trendy fonts. We make deliberate choices—fonts that scale, translate, and stay consistent across every platform. Choices that reinforce clarity, not clutter.
The moment your typeface feels right—like it was made for your message—that’s not luck. That’s alignment. That’s brand clarity on a cellular level.
— Arian Hashemi
What Makes a Typeface Solid?
Here’s what we look for in a dependable, high-performing typeface:
- Clarity at all sizes: It must read well on a billboard and still hold its shape at 10pt in a footer.
- Balanced proportions: Good rhythm between letters avoids visual fatigue—especially across long-form copy or mobile UI.
- Extensive character sets: Bonus points for multilingual support, smart ligatures, and stylistic alternates.
- Weight and style flexibility: A family that includes light, regular, medium, bold, and black (plus italics) gives you design range without losing cohesion.
- Neutrality with personality: The best typefaces serve the content—not steal the show—but still carry a distinct tone.
These aren’t flashy. They’re workhorses—chosen for performance, not trend:
- Inter: Sharp, neutral, and purpose-built for screens. Great for digital-first brands.
- GT Walsheim: Clean and geometric, but full of subtle personality. Modern without being sterile.
- Neue Haas Grotesk: The original Helvetica before Helvetica. Swiss precision, timeless appeal.
- TT Commons or Graphik: Both balance corporate neutrality with warmth—great for bilingual applications.
- Noto Family: Designed to support over 1,000 languages. Ideal for global brands needing typographic consistency across scripts.
Final thought: Typography isn’t where you cut corners. It’s where you set the tone. Get your type right, and everything else feels intentional.
BRAND HUSL
We’re a collective of brand strategists, designers, and unapologetic truth-tellers who’ve spent over two decades turning chaos into clarity for businesses across the globe. From global names to fearless startups, we’ve built brands that stick, scale, and sell—without the fluff. Everything we create is rooted in strategy, storytelling, and ROI, because good branding isn’t just pretty—it’s powerful.