
This category includes fonts such as Walbaum, Didot, and Bodoni, and they’re also best paired with geometric sans serifs. Fonts such as Perpetua, Times or Bookman will look stunning with geometric sans serifs, such as Century Gothic or Avant Garde.Īnd last but not least, modern serifs achieve a pronounced, stylized effect by having a dramatic contrast between thin and thick, and a larger x-height. Traditional serifs, on the other hand, come with a contrast between thin and thick strokes. They’re each split into categories, where for example, old style serifs such as Caslon or Garamond, work great with humanist sans serifs from the likes of Lucida Grande and Gill Sans. It doesn’t end with ‘serif’ and ‘sans-serif’. If the display face has a unique personality, you will need a neutral one as well, to do the hard work. You could do this with nothing more than size and weight, but when you have a varying typeface, it is crucial to have a careful pairing. Opt, however, for slightly different sans serifs or serifs, and you’ll get amazing pairings.Įstablishing hierarchy is important. If too similar, the typefaces might conflict. Contrast is all about finding typefaces that are different, yet complementary. Contrast is your friendĪs mentioned above, contrasting fonts such as a serif and sans-serif work great. When you use different fonts that are within the same typeface family, so-called ‘superfamily’, you already have a range of fonts, styles, and weights that are actually made to work with each other.Ī good one will give you both a serif and sans serif, such as Meta and Meta Sans, or Lucida and Lucida Sans. However, if people can’t read what you say, that won’t matter at all. You could go with the most beautiful font pairings possible. When you don’t have massive amounts of text, you could reduce the columns’ width, and improve readability. Our eyes struggle much less with short lines. Compare the mood to your project’s, and make sure they match. They might be girly, or bold, or fancy, or scary. This might not be an issue, but if you’re working with multilingual or international clients, this is important. Take a look at the glyphs firstīefore you commit to using a font, check if it has all characters you need. And, three fonts doesn’t mean three typefaces, using the same font in three weights works as well, and gives you plenty of variety. When font matching, don’t bother finding too many fonts. You can achieve more or less the same effect with font pairs where one is a handwritten font, and the other one is a script. Making a font match where one font is a serif, and the other one isn’t, will give you balance. Mix serifs and sans serifsĬontrast is good if you don’t push it too hard. Let’s take a look at our font pairing guide. Even though you might think font pairing is random, there is actually a science behind combining the headings, subheadings, and body and making them suit the content and the tone of the brand.īut, with so many to choose from, how do you find fonts that go well together? Below are some tips for font pairings, which will make mixing fonts a breeze for you. The rule most designers go by is “concord or contrast, but don’t conflict”. Any graphic designer will tell you that it’s a pretty difficult task to find a font pairing that won’t fight each other for attention and will harmonize without looking dull and boring.
