Just Your Type

Type is a very expressive design tool and making the right choice can be crucial for brands. In turn, having typographic consistency across all communication channels establishes a sense of familiarity and loyalty between the brand and its audience over time, and is an unquestionable asset in a brand’s toolkit. 

The Rationale

Increased usage of screen-based technology over the last decade has brought a resurgence in the popularity of sans serif type. 

Serif fonts have not always worked well in digital media as some screen resolutions have difficulty rendering them as accurately as reading sizes that are comfortable for print media. Generally, serifs do not fit as neatly into a screen’s pixel grid. The serifs appear a little blurry and are not as crisp as they are in print.

Proxima Nova, as a sans serif font, has great versatility as it is available in seven weights: thin, light, regular, semi-bold, bold, extra-bold and black. Each comes with matching italics as well as small caps styles and condensed and extra condensed widths.
 

Fonts 

Applications of Typography

Each application will have guidelines based on the channel in which it is being used. Here are some overall general guidelines and specifications for the typography. See 'Bring to Life' for more examples.

Headline Typography Spacing

The type treatment for headlines is another way we are creating brand recognition for City National. Headlines should always be short in character length as it will need to rag differently in various proportions. The spacing is also very key to its distinct appearance. The headlines are all caps and use negative leading and are always punctuated with a period. Negative leading refers to less than normal spacing between two lines of typography and is used to get considerable visual impact.