How to choose the best fonts for your site and branding
Your website font speaks volumes about the personality of your company and values. Follow these seven suggestions to select the most appropriate font for your site.
It's likely that fonts are something that's not important in the design of your site.
These are the windows on the building, right?
Not quite.
Fonts are a vital part of your brand and can have significant impressions on people's perception of your business.
Today, we present seven tips to help you find appropriate fonts to use on your site, from choosing the top fonts and where to download these fonts.
It is able to change the entire world.
However, we must first cover why a font by another name doesn't taste as delicious.
What is the significance of fonts on websites?
A lot is riding on your website fonts because they aid in communicating your business' personality, message and core the values.
In a visual way the font on your site conveys an idea to your visitors without them even reading your website's content.
For instance, Mailchimp , who rebranded their site using the Cooper Light, a typeface. Cooper Light.
Why did they choose Cooper Light?
Mailchimp considers that the font could be "dressed-up as well as casual and approachable". The typeface also communicates authenticity, trustworthiness and optimism, which are characteristics that are in line with their brand values.
The appropriate fonts have a practical use. They can help people be able to comprehend your message across a range of devices and platforms.
Airbnb as an example chose a font dubbed Cereal because it functions well with a wide range of offline and online platforms. The font portrays Airbnb as easy to use and a user-friendly experience.
When it comes to accessibility, you must pick a font that's accessible to everyone your audience members in particular if your company is translated into multiple languages.
If you choose an appropriate font that can be read by visitors who use different languages, users who utilize an automatic translator can still read your website with ease.
For an example, we can make use of the phrase " The quick brown Fox ."
In English, the text is easily read in Merriweather font.
But, when translated into Czech, it's much less readable and aesthetically-pleasing.
Therefore, if a substantial part of your audience is using your website to translate it into a different languages, be sure that the font you use is accessible across all languages.
Beyond readability, many studies reveal that fonts can influence consumers opinions about a brand and its products universally.
In particular, font characteristics -- like naturalness, balance, and weightaffect your customers' general impression of your brand.
These factors also impact your customers' buying intent.
The study also revealed that when consumers are looking for a peaceful vacation, an easy-to-read font makes them more likely to shell out for a tour.
On the contrary, though consumers are looking to find a tour that is more exciting, a harder-to-read font will increase their desire to spend money on a tour.
In addition to all of the factors mentioned above, fonts also affect the experience of your customers beyond the point of purchase, and play into product perceptions and the overall experience for customers.
In the case of curvilinearity, it was evident that curvilinearity - -- or fonts with curved lines -- affected diners' taste expectation and experience.
Is there a moral to this?
Website fonts influence how your visitors perceive your brand as well as your products and services, and they also impact your site's accessibility and ease-of-use.
That said, picking a font that conveys the correct message is only part of the equation.
Learn about our four best practices, and you'll get closer to finding the best font for your business.
Four tips to choose the right web fonts
Tip #1: Make sure you use easy-to-read fonts
The ideal fonts on websites are those that are easily readable.
Otherwise, your website visitors could leave your site due to it's difficult to understand. Naturally, this will mean you'll spend less time reading your marketing messages and exploring your website's features.
Therefore, readingability is the top priority when you select the font on your site. It'll ensure that everything -- from your blog posts to call-to-action (CTA) buttons to headers -- easier to read.
Although there's no web font that is the most effectively for every company, Verdana and Georgia are great choices for displaying long website texts.
The same is confirmed by this study which found that Verdana was excellent for reading text on screens.
It is crucial to readability in posting testimonials on your website. Actually, difficult-to-read fonts could negatively impact good reviews, and customers believe that an individual reviewer to be more trustworthy when the review they write is simple to comprehend.
While the importance of readability is high but it also comes with an enigma: fonts with easy-to-read layouts aren't always as appealing.
In fact, one study found when you write in hard-to-read fonts, it's more easily remembered as opposed to writing using a font that is easy to read.
The study cautions against going too far as well as employing fonts that make reading more difficult all-around for people who read.
It begs to ask: How should you balance between easy-to-ready and hard-to-read fonts on your site?
Simply put, follow the two parts of this rule of thumb:
Wild Side Design For instance, it uses multiple fonts that draw users' attention to different parts of their page.
The majority of the content on its website is written in a simple font but its CTAs, captions, and headlines employ more intricate fonts.
For another example, look at Mad Hippie which is a cosmetics company. It displays a font that is handwritten in order to highlight the subheadings as well as short descriptions of its products.
No matter what mix you choose in fonts, here's the gist:
Easy-to-read fonts are often the most appropriate fonts for web texts, particularly long ones. Fonts that are difficult to read may be more appropriate to convey important information with shorter lengths that you want users to retain.
Fonts and copy lengths aren't all you need that you can play with. There's also size to consider and that is why we're going to discuss our next point.
Tip #2: Make your font size big (enough)
While there is no uniform font size for websites, you'll want to design it in a way that is large enough for your customers to be able to read it on any size device.
A study suggested that websites with a lot of text use a size 18 font or greater.
In the same study, it was found that the readability and accuracy of responses to comprehension-related questions are higher when the font size.
Not to mention, larger font sizes help people with difficulties with reading or sight.
What's more, for both older and younger individuals, larger font sizes will result in increased efficiency and accuracy, as well as a longer the distance of viewing, as well as a less apprehension of difficulty in completing tasks.
If that's not enough to get you to make use of a larger font on your website there's another reason to consider.
The font size of websites can impact comprehension and readability for individuals with dyslexia as well. The study recommends that you use a 18-point font when designing a website for those with dyslexia.
To summarize:
The two points we have provided so have been focused on the functionality of fonts, our third tip concentrates on the visual appeal of the fonts.
Tip #3: Don't use more than three sizes of fonts, fonts, or colors
Using a few different fonts, font sizes, and colors on your website will draw attention to different components of your site, such as CTAs testimonials, CTAs, and other crucial text.
This being said that you must limit how numerous fonts and colors you utilize, in order to create a consistent and visually pleasing visual experience.
If you do not have a website, it could appear too complicated or difficult to navigate. Also, you may miss your target when it comes to communicating your message since your page is too cluttered with variation.
To see an example of a name that is successful with their font color choices and message, take a look at Lowe's brand, which employs the colors of blue, black and gray text, as well as numerous fonts on their site.
This works in line with the brand's colors and gender neutral DIY home improvement branding.
Workationing is also able to balance the font variation well on their website. It employs black text on title of articles and more lengthy copy, and white text for buttons, headlines, and shorter text.
Although you are welcome to play around with colors other than black and white, it's generally best to limit yourself to two or three colors.
This is due to the fact that the fact that colors other than white and black may be hard to read when you are on a site. Therefore, you should use those colors that aren't black and white for accent colors to bring attention to something you wish to emphasize on your site.
Take "The Abundant Artist" for an illustration. While a majority of their content includes black text, they do use orange as headlines and for articles categories.
If you're wondering how to choose the right combination for your website follow this tutorial on combinations of fonts . If you're using Google fonts for your website make sure you check out these 21 Google Combinations of fonts .
Basically:
You can spice up your website with different font types and sizes or even colors. Make sure that each type is compatible with the others and provides a clean and seamless user experience to your customers.
Keep your pizzazz to a minimum though, since you'll need to maintain the same design throughout your websites.
Tips #4: Ensure that you maintain your fonts constant
Our last tip for today is to use the same fonts throughout your web site.
Why?
Apart from adding image, consistent font usage provides your visitors with a better user experience. It also makes browsing your site more enjoyable.
More specifically using the same fonts within the same format (such as headlines and body content) aids users in finding relevant information faster. In the end, 56% of users are hoping to find the information they require in 3 clicks or less. So any effort you make to ease navigation is super beneficial.
Additionally, when you have a a unified appearance on your site, you appear more trustworthy and professional.
This is an important point when you consider that a staggering 47 percent of people believe that the website of a company is one of the most trustworthy sources of data.
Building trust with your customers must be done quickly, too. Today, visitors evaluate a site's credibility in 3.42 second depending on its design attractiveness.
What's more, consistency between a brand's image and website may lead to a positive attitude towards the company in addition.
For you to make sure that you can reap the benefits of these, here are two examples of brands that use the same fonts.
Amazon makes use of the font Amazon Ember throughout its homepage.
Not to toot our own to the world, but we do use the same fonts for headings and text throughout site pages, too.
It is important using the same fonts for the similar elements on your website, so that it is easier for users to navigate through.
Now that you're familiar with guidelines for using fonts We'll look at how you can make use of these to choose the most appropriate typeface for your website.
Find the right typeface for your site
#1. Determine what message you would like your font to convey
Although readability is the first consideration when selecting the font you choose but the message you wish to communicate should come in as an equally important consideration.
The restaurant chose an appropriate font to fit with their image of haute cuisine, for instance.
Nature , an academic journal, picked a font known as Harding because they wanted an appropriate font to represent the mathematical formulas and symbols.
They also picked a brand new font that gave off the impression of "calm and rational" to be consistent with their logo.
Although fonts are merely placeholders for spoken word however, they may send surprising different signals.
Take a look at Times News Roman, a popular font. Times New Roman was perceived to be more angry and funny in comparison to Arial in the study of participants who were reading satirical text using Arial. Times font.
A separate study also showed that the participants in a separate study were presented with email messages written in different styles of fonts.
The participants who read an email written in Gigi (which you will see below) found it more rebellious and youthful in comparison to other fonts that were studied. They also thought Gigi to be less sturdy as well as practical.
Participants also considered the author for the Gigi email to be less professional, trustworthy, and older.
This research shows that fonts are able to communicate more about your brand and your personality than just the literal words they represent.
For ensuring that the readers are getting your message properly, check your fonts prior to a large-scale deployment.
#2: Try your fonts on your target audience
Not only should your font be simple to read but it should also be enjoyable to look at.
As they say, time flies when you're having fun and the same goes for reading your site.
In fact, experimental participants underestimated how long they spent studying a text by 3 mins and 18 secs in the average for texts that had good typography.
Contrary to the people who have read texts with poor quality fonts and who overestimated their reading time by 24 seconds in the average.
The results suggest that a good font can keep readers engaged with your site's text, so it's important to choose the appropriate one.
Certain of your results may alter your beliefs But that's not a bad thing -- your research can help you determine ways to make your website better for customers, not confirm your theories.
You might, for instance, believe that a more simple font will increase the conversion rate on your sales or product pages. But one research study discovered that using an smoother font wasn't effective for increasing the rate at which an eCommerce site converts customers.
The lesson here is to try out fonts on your audience before applying them to your entire website. The way that customers interpret those fonts, and how they respondmight surprise you.
However, if the results are not conclusive or if you do not have enough respondents to poll then you may choose our final tip.
#3: If in doubt you are unsure, choose a regular font
Until you figure out the best fonts for your brand, stick with top website fonts like Georgia as well as Verdana.
We mentioned it earlier that multiple studies have shown Verdana as one of the most effective fonts to use for websites body text.
In one research study, subjects in a study expressed the preference to read Verdana while reading on a computer screen. They also read their text more quickly and experienced less regressions (backward movement) while reading text with Verdana.
A separate study found that the participants prefer a 12 point dot-matrix Arial font. Another study suggests that readers were able to read faster when reading sans serif fonts.
Perhaps you're afraid that customers might confuse your business for another if the font used is a standard one which isn't unjust.
Companies have been critiqued for using similar or identical fonts in their brands -- just consider how similar the fonts used by Google, Airbnb, Spotify and Pinterest are.
But, as businessman Thierry Brunfaut notes, using similar fonts as other companies can be beneficial.
Thierry said that:
"The quantity of images users are bombarded with daily is overwhelmingwhether on the street or on laptops, or even on their smartphone.
An unorganized visual space that makes it hard to navigate into. Most of all, clarity, are now the main words used by any brand.
The bold and neutral logos send consumers the same story: Our brand and our products are straightforward, easy, and clear. Also, they are extremely easy to read."
Basically:
Don't shy away from popular fonts – they are often able to assist customers to access your website or communicate a clearer message to customers more effectively than an original (untested) font could.
If you're using your old font or are looking to try a completely new typeface, look through the font foundries below for the addition of new fonts to your site.
How do you find the most effective fonts for your website
When it comes to locating the right fonts for your site, there are two choices. The first is to use the fonts that are built into your site builder of choice.
The second is to use the font finder, or a website where fonts are available for download and or/sale, which, obviously, opens the door for more choices.
A few of the top online font foundries include:
#1. Google Fonts
Google Fonts is one of the most popular font websites and arguably the top website for free fonts. Users can download hundreds of free fonts that are available in more than 135 different languages.
Each of the fonts that are available through Google Fonts is free to use and may be utilized to create commercial use .
#2. Fonts.com
Similar to Google Fonts, Fonts.com has thousands of fonts for you to select in front of more than 150,000 to be specific.
But, it is necessary to purchase each font before making use of the font.
#3. Fontspring
Fontspring Fontspring the font finder that offers thousands of paid fonts.
What sets Fontspring apart from other foundries is that they offer the Fontspring badge to show that they aren't forced to impose limitations or conditions on their users.
This lowers your chance of committing a breach with a font purchased through their website.
#4. What is the Font
What font is website font detector extension which helps you find the fonts used on a webpage.
Though it doesn't have fonts available for purchase, it can help to find a font another site that you'd like to try to create your own.
#5. Type Detail
If you've found the font that you love however you're not sure of how it will look in different weights and sizes visit Type Detail.
Type Detail provides (naturally) information about a variety of famous fonts. For instance, this font profile called Neue Swift .
Among other things, Type Detail shows how the font appears when it is in different dimensions and weights. It also reveals what makes the font unique, and also similar fonts.
If you're able you can find the perfect font, find out the ways you can change fonts for your shopfront.
Change the fonts of your storefront
Your website can be changed the fonts within a flash of an eye, when you have your own storefront online .
Then, go to the Editor and select the page you want to edit. Select the style of your headings and body type style in the "Fonts" dropdown menu.
Simply click the downward-facing arrow next to each font box and then choose the font you prefer.
You're done! You've just added a unique font for your storefront.
Select the right web font in a few simple steps
Fonts are more than just a way to represent words. They can influence how others perceive your business.
Needless to say, picking a font for your business must be a priority along with choosing the perfect logo, brand colors, as well as the layout of your website.
If you are using fonts on websites You should follow these guidelines:
Choose a font that is simple to read.
Create a font that is large enough for most readers (size 18 or greater font)
Do not use a lot of different fonts sizes, colors or styles
Make sure that your fonts are consistent
Pick a font that sends the correct message about your brand
Check your font's performance with the people you are targeting
Choose a font that is common in case you aren't able to decide which fonts you'd like to choose.
Like the right logo and brand colors, the fonts on your site can be an impact on a positive and poor impression of your visitors. We're here to give them a favorable one.