Around 2019 we noticed that our identity systems had grown heavy. A typical set of guidelines specified a display face, a text face, a second sans serif for interfaces, a monospace for numbers and sometimes a script for the one word that needed charm. Five families, fifteen weights and a licensing spreadsheet of their own. Clients followed about a third of it.

one family, many voices

Since then we have started every identity with a single family, and added a second only when the first genuinely cannot do the job. It has held for the last six projects. A well-drawn family with a few weights and a true italic can carry a surprising range. Set large and tight, it becomes a headline. Set small and open, it becomes a caption. The contrast comes from size, spacing and position rather than from switching faces.

For fieldwork coffee in Melbourne we used one grotesque in two weights across bags, cups, a delivery van and the website. The roasting notes on the back of each bag are set in the regular at 7 point with generous tracking, and the name on the front in the bold at 90 point. From a metre away they look like two typefaces. They are one, and the baristas can set a new bag label on the café laptop without calling us.

The contrast comes from size, spacing and position. It rarely needs a second typeface.

what happens after we leave

The real argument for fewer typefaces is what happens after launch. An identity is used for years by people who never met us: a new marketing hire, an agency in another country, a printer choosing a substitute when a font file goes missing. Every extra family is another way for that to go wrong. One family is easy to explain, easy to license and easy to spot when someone has quietly replaced it.

It also costs less. Licensing five families for web, desktop and app use can run to thousands of euros a year for a small company. For a coffee roaster or a family winery, that money is better spent on paper, photography or people.

when two is right

We are not dogmatic about it. The site you are reading uses a serif for headings, a sans serif for text and, we admit, a script for the occasional decorative word, because long reading and short labels asked for different things. The rule is simple. Start with one. Add another when you can say in a sentence what it does that the first cannot. If the sentence turns into a paragraph, you probably do not need it.