The advent of digital media has revolutionized the way content is created and consumed. Almost all brands now want to have an active presence on the majority of the social media handles. Website design is given a lot of importance as it serves as the digital home for businesses. Apart from that, there are dozens of other digital marketing mediums that are employed by businesses in order to enhance their brand reach and overall revenue. The job of a graphic designer becomes difficult in this scenario as they need to keep designing content that is creative, fresh, and also effective. The major problem that designers face in this task is the lack of good quality resources. This dearth is more severe in the case of good fonts.
Editors Note
With so many options in the world of font design, there is an opportunity to gather some of the best-looking fonts for the digital world through two of the best well-known providers, Adobe Stock and Shutterstock. Currently, they are both promoting 10 free images with a free trial subscription. These big players in the digital image space don’t usually give away font designs.
Designers need to be particular about using the right set of fonts when designing for digital media. In the case of print media, they know what the final application is going to be and hence can size the font accordingly. But digital media created by them will be consumed in a variety of devices starting from laptops to even smartwatches. Hence they need to ensure that the font they use is easy to scale up or down as per need. The text should be legible and the overall typography should look visually appealing. This aspect is all the more important when they are working for a responsive website design. To help designers with this problem, we have collated some of the most used and highly effective fonts that they can use when working on digital media.
1. Digitalo
One of the most needed font styles in digital media is that of a neat and good-looking straight font style. This Digitalo typeface goes a step beyond that and offers a good blend of creativity and functionality as well. The font is a visually appealing regular display font but still looks different thanks to the abstract curves which make the letters look as if they have been created using tiny pixels. It supports multilingual features and also includes numerical and punctuation marks. This font can be used when creating designs or websites for digital or IT-related businesses.
2. Rockwell
Moving from a digital simple font to a strong bold font, next in the list we have Rockwell. This font is free to download and is widely used. Coming with 15 different styles, this typeface gives a robust look and is also highly adaptable. This serif font style has added extra weight to the font body making them look strong and distinctive. Hence this font style can be easily used for headings in the design. The thinnest of the font can also be used for paragraph text or it can be matched with a san serif font style. The font provides numerical and symbols and is available as web-font as well.
3. Serca
Serca is a highly modern, condensed, and versatile font style. With a clean san serif style as the base, it is made extra creative by the use of open apertures and neat vertical terminals. As you will observe, there is an angled stem every time curves join. This gives the font a distinctive and creative look. It comes with a dual font family of 40 styles including normal and condensed. The fonts include both the caps, icons, symbols, and also stylistic alternates. Though the font comes at the cost of $39, it offers 600 glyphs that you can customize as per need.
4. Frutiger
A font with slight variation from Serca is Frutiger. The foundational elements here also remain the same. The styling is san serif, the weight is medium but the angled stem is there. Also, the apertures are not the standard ones and this gives the font a more creative appeal. The good news is that it is free to download and use. It also comes with numbers, symbols, and special characters. These types of fonts are best to use in digital designs like social media posts, websites, and also for branding. The neat and simple look ensures that text is readable in all formats.
5. Soft Clouds
While digital fonts are safe and easy to use, they may get boring as well. Hence you need to have certain creative fonts in your collection which you can use for designing special posts that can draw people’s attention. Soft clouds are one such amazing font that can help you in this purpose. As the name suggests the characters are designed to look as if they have been created from clouds. There is a line cutting through each of them. The overall font-weight is high and this makes the font style look strong and easy to use for headlines, posters, invitations, and more. The font comes with all letters, numbers, and symbols. With regard to fonts that are safe, it’s important to consider fonts that look perfect in every browser, every time. In 2021 that’s not usually a problem, but a consideration to make note of when choosing fonts for your digital media publications and platforms.
6. Montserrat
One of the most common fonts in the graphic designing world is Montserrat. If you have not heard this name then you are probably living in a cave. Inspired by the traditional neighborhood of Buenos Aires, this font style is very simple and easy to use. It is a san serif style with varying font weights. The best part about this font is that there are a lot of styling options and that it can be matched with almost any font style. The simplicity of the font ensures that it can be legible irrespective of the size. This is why this font style is one of the most preferred ones when it comes to logo taglines as that text comes in really small when used.
7. All Formal
Designers need elegant and rich-looking fonts when it comes to designing invitations or other formal creatives. All Formal font styles can be very useful for this purpose. In the first look, it seems like a standard old serif font style. But on a closer look, you can observe that it has a wider kerning and this makes it look good and eye-catchy. The font provides only uppercase letters in regular and italic versions. But it does come with a set of 322 characters that can be utilized. This type of font is best suited for wedding invitations, announcement posters, business logos, and even websites headers.
8. Nawabiat
If you are looking for an alternative to the above san serif font for use in wedding invitations and other such applications, then Nawabiat can be a good choice. This font style is a simple san serif style but has a playful element to it. It is a hand-drawn font and hence looks highly creative. It includes symbols and characters and even lower case letters. The best part is that it is free to download and use. You can easily use this font when you are making a poster or an invitation or even for other informal applications.
9. Ravenger
Bold is beautiful! This is the case with the Ravenger font style. It is a very new display font that you should add to your collection. Presently a regular version along with italics, bold and bold italics versions are available. That includes both the cases, numbers, and symbols. This type of font is best to use for posters, logos, stickers, apparel design. You can also use them for social media posts or website headers especially where you want to show the strong side of the brand.
10. Raleway
There are fonts that you need to keep for specific purposes and then there are fonts that you need to keep to use for any purposes. Raleway font style fits in the latter group. This highly elegant san serif font style is very versatile and can be used almost anywhere at any time. It is interesting to know that it was first developed as a single thin-weight font. Later on, the bold, italics and other versions were added. Now the font family has expanded to over 20 styles. This is where this font helps the designers a lot as they can match the font styles from the family.
11. Aalto Sans
A lot of designers question the pricing of certain fonts, but when they start using them, the cost is always justified. This is the case with Aalto Sans. It comes at the cost of $99 but is still one of the most purchased and used fonts. Aalto Sans is a neutral and clean san serif font that has a very friendly and modern feel to it. Coming in 8 weights, the entire family has over 48 different styles. Hence designers can match these styles themselves. This font is widely used for corporate designs be it branding, social media, website, or other print media.
12. Rock Salt
Moving away from modern corporate fonts, next on the list we have Rock Salt. The quirky name is well supported by the cold design of the font. It is basically a handwritten san serif font style. But unlike other handwritten fonts, it is rougher and this gives it a realistic feel. The font style comes only in upper case but does include numbers and symbols. This font style is best to use in places where you need your design to look cool and creative. Though the font is strong, but it may not be best suited for very small applications.
13. Spotlight
Continuing with handwritten fonts, Spotlight is a new cool and creative handwritten font. It is really eye-catching and hence can be used for promotional posts on social media or posters or other such applications where you want to draw the user’s attention quickly. Its styling is quite unique with a combination of handwritten and display styles. The font weights are really heavy and this makes it suitable for headlines. The font comes in both cases along with numbers and symbols. With the rising trend of using such types of font styles on social media, it is best to add this to your collection.
14. Playfair Display
A free to use web-font, Playfair Display is a good contrasting font to the standard digital fonts. This serif font style draws its inspiration from the transition period of the late 18th century when nib quills were being replaced with pointed steel pens which resulted in delicate hairlines to the letters. It comes with a huge family starting from thin to bold and italics version. The letter styling is unique and can leave back a good brand recall. These fonts can be used for formal applications like business letters, invitations, logos, and even websites.
15. Goldie
There are few fonts out there that make you fall in love with them at the first sight. Goldie is one such amazing font. It is a very clean and slightly bulky modern font with a very wide kerning. It comes in uppercase and lowercase along with numbers and special symbols. It also supports multilingual accents and characters. Goldie font can be used in logos, social media posts, promotional posters, event posters, and invitations, and much more. At just $19 it is worth adding to your font collection.
16. Helvetica
At the risk of being boring, we have included Helvetica in the list as well given this font’s versatility and how it is being widely used. Almost every 1 out of 5 designs on digital media would be using this font style. But then there is a reason for this. This font is an ideal font when it comes to digital applications and can be easily scaled up or down. Also, the entire Helvetica family consists of over 50 weights and styles. This way you will get a strong font style for headers and thin ones for paragraph text. Whether you like it or hate it, you need to have this font in your collection.
Digital fonts can be tricky at times. What may look good when designing on a desktop may not look that well when posted on social media. As a designer, you should always keep the application in mind when designing digital media. It is advisable to play it safe and use fonts that do not lose their legibility when seen in a small device. At the same time, you also need to be creative in terms of the font you use and also the way you match your fonts in the design.
Thanks for sharing the article. I had a great time reading this, the article was informative and useful.