The Best Fonts for Your Designs
You’ve no doubt heard of color psychology before, but what about the psychology of fonts? The font type you choose to use in your designs isn’t just there to look good. It also influences how others perceive what they’re viewing and can therefore help – or hinder – the message you’re trying to convey.
If you’re looking for the best free font styles, you’ll find them all within BeFunky’s creative suite. It’s home to a huge selection of different fonts, ranging from Serif and Sans Serif, to Script, Display, and more. This means the best fonts for designers are all available at your fingertips—no cost required.
In this article, we’ll reveal more about each of these font families, as well as how you can use them to create the best graphic designs for every occasion.
Font Inspiration for Your Next Graphic Design Project
Can’t decide between Serif, Sans Serif, Script, or Display? Don’t worry, we’ve created some design examples to show you which font ideas are worth whipping up and when.
Serif
A Serif font is simply one which contains small decorative marks (known as 'serifs') to embellish characters, which also makes them easier to read. When we think of Serif fonts, we tend to imagine those you’d typically see in a newspaper, such as Times New Roman, Garamond, or Baskerville.
Serif fonts imply formality, tradition, respect, and reliability, and are therefore great for use in business-related documents, such as CVs, letters, whitepapers, and reports, as well as more formal event invitations or menus.
Take this menu, for example, which is intended for a fine dining restaurant. Here, we’ve used the fonts Libre Baskerville and Old Standard TT, which are not only easy to read (especially under dim restaurant lighting) but also do a great job at implying just how fancy this establishment is.
Sans Serif
Unlike Serif fonts, Sans Serif fonts don’t contain the small decorative embellishments on their characters. Because of this, they are best reserved for shorter sections of text such as captions or headlines, as they can be a little trickier to read than their Serif counterparts.
Popular Serif fonts include Arial, Helvetica, and Geneva. With their simple, 'no fuss' appearance, Sans Serif fonts convey sensibility, honesty, minimalism, and modernity.
Check out this brochure design for a cosmetic dental practice, for example. The headlines contain the Sans Serif font Poppins, while the paragraphs underneath feature the Serif font Arvo, allowing them to be more legible, despite the larger chunks of text.
It doesn’t matter what type of design you’re working on, you can always rely on a font pairing of a Serif and Sans Serif!
Script
Script fonts (also known as Decorative fonts) embrace the idea that lettering can also be artistic and eye-catching. In the 19th Century, artists began to experiment with more ornate styles of text in posters and advertisements, and this remains a popular design trend to this day.
From cursive calligraphy to humble handwriting, Script fonts encompass many different looks, and therefore, can convey different messages. The most common feelings they evoke, however, are elegance, creativity, fun, and quirkiness.
As you can see with this Facebook Ad example, the headline “Online Craft Classes” is in the Script font Raustila Regular, while the sub-headline text is in the Sans Serif font Darker Grotesque. The playful headline font instantly captures the viewer’s attention, while also expressing the fun, playful nature of the classes.
Display
Display fonts can come in all shapes and sizes, and sometimes, may even feature characteristics of the previous categories. They differ, however, in the sense that they are designed to only be used as prominent and attention-grabbing headlines, and therefore, are not recommended for use in lengthier chunks of text.
Display fonts make a big, bold statement, which also means the message they convey can vary drastically. When using Display fonts, think carefully about the theme of your piece, then determine if the style of your Display font further complements (rather than detracts from) this idea.
In this invitation design, for example, we’ve used the Display font Jokerman for the headline. Tying in with the surprise party theme, the font is fun, quirky, and anything but average. When it comes to the supporting text, however, we’ve opted for a simple Sans Serif font (Cabin) to keep the design balanced and easy to read.
How to Import Your Own Fonts Into BeFunky
We’ve already mentioned that BeFunky has tons of font options, but did you know you can also import your own font files into the platform for you to use in your projects?
When you select to choose a font, simply click on the 'plus' (+) symbol located next to the font search bar to Add Fonts. This allows you to add fonts from your computer or to import fonts from Google Fonts.
Embrace BeFunky’s Best Graphic Design Fonts
When it comes to font ideas, BeFunky’s creative suite is home to an amazing array of typography—all of which are free to use! Whether you’re looking for the most timeless font, the best font for professional documents, or even professional fonts for your logo, you’ll find all of this (and more) with BeFunky.
What cool text fonts will you use in your next design? Start a new project in the Graphic Designer to find out!
