How to choose the right font for your website

A website font is like an outfit. It tells viewers a lot about your personality, your brand, and the values you represent. Much like choosing the perfect outfit for a job interview, your font should make the right impression on your website visitors, delivering a clear message and creating a picture that matches what they are looking for. And just like there are certain standards in the fashion industry that enable you to make the right choice when choosing your outfit, you will find design tools and guidelines that make choosing the right font for your website a lot easier.

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Font Personalities

Depending on your industry, your target audience and the message your brand is trying to convey, there are several font personalities to consider. There are many font websites that allow free downloads, just check the rights for each font to ensure that you’re following the rules.

Contemporary Fonts

Modern fonts are the perfect choice for young, energetic and dynamic brands. Their design is usually clear and precise, sans-serif with straightforward lines, no squiggles. They also come across as minimalistic due to their lack of flair with typically very bold or very thin font styles such Neo Sans and Frutiger.

Classic Fonts

Traditional serif fonts including Times New Roman and Georgia are well suited for established businesses that want to portray a sense of heritage, respect and reliability. Because they have been used by magazines, books and newspapers long before the internet was invented, they are associated with feelings of familiarity and trust. However, they can easily be perceived as boring by younger generations, so it is important to know your audience well.

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Defined Fonts

Symbolizing strength and stability, fonts in this category such as Aftershock and Futura are usually sans-serif and convey masculinity, no fuss, straightforwardness. They are often available in bold, block-like and capitalized versions, ideal if you want to make a statement or appear robust.

Creative Fonts

If your business operates in industries such as weddings, flowers, vintage or beauty, it pays to look into hand-written or calligraphy fonts including Sophia and Sacramento. These mostly italic designs add a personal touch thanks to their many curves and are associated with the idyllic, romantic and picturesque as well as peace, tranquillity and elegance.

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Carefree

These are similar to the creative fonts, but less vintage-looking. The rounder the handwritten design the quirkier and more spirited it comes across as. Handmade fashion stores and travel bloggers often choose this category to evoke feelings of joyfulness and merriness in their readers.
Whichever font you choose, always keep the focus on the following things: your brand, your message and your target audience. Make sure your font is readable in different sizes and enhances user experience.

Google Fonts

Using a web font service is a great way to browse an extensive range of fonts without having to spend money on buying a whole lot of individual ones. There are plenty around to choose from, but one of the best ones is Google Fonts – which is also entirely free to use. It allows you to play around with font combinations, gives you suggestions based on your input and fonts can be used for any commercial and non-commercial project.

How it works

You don’t need to be a programmer to use Google Fonts. Launched in 2010, the service currently offers more than 1000 free licensed font families to choose from and is available in many different languages. Simply browse the online tool for your desired style. Serif or Sans-Serif? Handwritten or Display? Type in a sample sentence and experiment with width, thickness, font size and pair it with other fonts to see how the effect changes.

Once you have made your choice, simply copy the code shown by Google Fonts into the HTML document on your website. Next, add the CSS rules which Google Font is also giving you into your CSS style-sheet. Done.

If you would like to learn more about fonts and how to choose the right one for your website, contact the friendly team at Energise Web today. We specialize in responsive website design and are happy to answer your questions or provide you with a range of tools to make sure you get the most out of your online presence.

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