Picking a typeface for a project is a lot like looking for a dog at the pound. You stare at thousands of fonts, looking at the subtle nuances, waiting for the right one to look back at you and tell you I am the one for you. A good trick to employ is to type “Hi! Hello.” in the font test drive box and try to listen for the tone and personality that comes across. I call it using your third ear. I don’t really call it that, actually.

It was Univers 47 Condensed that stared back at me with it’s condensed, vertical O’s. How do you fit a nine letter company name like Shickadoo on a page without feeling strung out? You squish it like a NY deli reuben, that’s how. One thought on condensed typefaces is that you should never use them in display headlines because they are difficult for the eye to track. But with a word like Shickadoo, the eye has to hit the brakes to read the word anyway because your brain does not have the word cataloged.

Univers is clean, modern–can be bold or soft–but it lets the information get across without taking a stand. It can spell the name of a metal band or an acoustic funk trio without missing a step or inferring anything. That allows the name of the band and the bands graphics to speak to what the music sounds like. Univers allows Shickadoo to stay on the information and delivery side and allows the bands identity to speak for itself. Learn more about Univers.