Once you have a pairing that works well with your content, it’s time to use your fonts to establish a clear visual structure. Play with size and weight to emphasize some text and de-emphasize other text. Creating strong contrast between the fonts is one way of doing that. However, creating contrast doesn’t always mean making conflict by choosing two opposite font types. You can also mix weights, kerning and styles to achieve contrast. You shouldn’t choose more than 2-3 fonts for your brand, as we have already mentioned.
Formal scripts tend to resemble traditional calligraphy, such as Snell Roundhand. Modern scripts on the other hand, are bolder and often intended to emulate handwriting from today’s age. The easiest way to create visual hierarchy is to vary the size of your text. As always, it’s best to pick a size for your body font first. Whether or not we intend it, our font choices evoke emotional responses from our readers (this is known as font psychology). To communicate effectively, we need to manage those responses by choosing fonts that match the nature of the subject matter.
Rule Number Five Is ‘There Are No Rules’
If you’re using a cursive or script font, its alternates could make the text appear more ‘natural’ by adding the variety that would appear in actual handwriting (Caveat, Sriracha). On the other hand, the alternate characters in a serif or sans font may add a touch of distinction that stands out from normal text. Effectively pairing typefaces establishes visual harmony and clear hierarchy. When combining typefaces, look for complementary styles that offer enough contrast to create a distinction without clashing.
YouTube uses YouTube Sans, which is inspired by its own logo. Thus the font has angle cuts in the ascenders, arms and curves in the collars and shoulders. Thanks to the availability of these fonts on various websites such as Google Fonts, Behance, Dribble, Dafont and many others. Choose slab font if you want to make a big splash or indicate how innovative your products and ideas are. They can help you communicate a sense of importance and need. Before you dive in, you must understand that every font sends a different message.
What is typography?
Here are some popular decorative fonts and personality traits. To sum up, let’s compile a «profile of the perfect font» based on a series of criteria it must fulfill. You can also rely on them while choosing a font for your design.
One of the most well-known serif typefaces and probably the first font you ever used on a computer is Times New Roman. In order to know how to choose fonts, we need to understand the various categories of type, the characteristics of each, and recommended usage. In this guide, we’ll refer to three different categories of type when choosing font pairings.
Brands That Developed Their Own Fonts
If a brand is modern and cutting edge, the designer might choose something like Roboto or Raleway. In almost all projects, it’s important for the typeface being used to at least support extended Latin characters, like accents and umlauts. Not being able to spell words or names because accents aren’t supported can make a project look unprofessional at best. Readability and legibility can both be impacted dramatically by the size of the font being used.
From there, designers can search for fonts that include those keywords or synonyms. The scope of the project or projects in which a font will be used is one of the first things designers should consider when choosing a typeface. A font that will only be used for a limited scope, such as a slide deck, will need to be less flexible choosing fonts for website than one that will be used across a brand’s entire visual presence. You’ll find many opinions on this, but it’s also not a bad idea to consider a limited palette of typefaces you like best from lists of the most popular type of all time. Some designers have gone a whole career using less than twenty typefaces most of the time.
Sans Serif Fonts
At relatively small sizes, up to 16pt, try sans serif options like Roboto, Montserrat and Raleway. Sans serifs also tend to have relatively low stroke contrast and a more even stroke weight, which gives them an even ‘color’ when scaled down and packed into a small space. In example A, the type of fonts in the first logo could be swapped so that the main font is a serif, and the subfont is a sans serif. Serif fonts complement a professional, traditional business practice like law firms better than sans serifs, which tend to look more modern. You can play around with different weights of a single font family and use them as brand fonts. Use thick and rounded sans serifs for titles, and light, thin ones for subheadings and body text.
- Be wary of trendy or popular typefaces that you see everyone else using.
- What if you picked Trajan to illustrate the title graphics of an article about ancient Greece?
- A typeface is a collection of fonts while a font refers to a specific style or weight within a typeface family.
- For a website or an app, you’ll likely want to follow the same rule.
Use this guide as a checklist for choosing all of the fonts for your brand. Also referred to as ‘Venetian’, these are our oldest typefaces, the result of centuries of incremental development of our calligraphic forms. Old Style faces at their best are classic, traditional, readable and at their worst are… well, classic and traditional.
Experiment by trying out a few of these and see what works best in layout. Whether you find these words inspiring or intimidating, the plain fact is that the right typographic choice always reflects the specific needs of the project itself. Certain fonts work best in headlines, while others read well in paragraphs. Some font families are large enough to include international scripts and special characters. Your typeface should align with your brand’s tone and identity, as they can evoke different emotions and perceptions. Serif typefaces often convey tradition and authority, while sans-serif fonts project a modern, clean appearance.
While many fonts have general licenses that allow for use in virtually any situation, others do not. Others allow for use in promotional materials but might now allow for use on a product being sold. With a commitment to quality content for the design community. In The 6 Figure Freelance Designer, you’ll learn how building a successful business as a freelancer is possible anywhere with an internet connection. We give you a roadmap to follow to consistently attract high-value clients and make a great living doing what you love. In The Webflow Masterclass, you’ll learn how to use Webflow to build custom, fully-functional websites quickly without learning how to code.
Using the same font everywhere will not provide any contrast, and you might end up creating a boring brand name. However, you can try experimenting with two different weights of the same font to create a harmonious effect. A font can have multiple weights, such as light, regular, semibold and bold. Choosing a font with multiple weights is crucial to building a visually appealing text hierarchy. Each one has to complement the other to demonstrate your brand’s personality in the overall look. Since you have understood the different font families well enough, combining them will become a lot easier.