10 Contemporary Fonts for Graphic Designers

If your audience can’t read important text, then your message won’t be as clear or have much of an impact on them. Here is our list of 10 fonts to help you get the engagement you deserve.

This list is supposed to function as a guide for simple and sleek fonts for designers. They’re legible, professional, and have a classic feel to them.

 

1. Garamond

This font was created by Claude Garamond and this particular typeface is popular for printing body text and books. It’s classified as an old-style serif and was first conceived in the 1500s.

 

Pair it with:

Gill Sans, Europa, and Recta.

 

2. Gotham

This font is a more recent creation made in 2000 by Tobias Frere-Jones. It’s based on popular architectural signage found in 20th-century New York. It was developed for professional use with dimensions appropriate for screen display. It was also used in Barack Obama’s 2008 presidential campaign. It’s classified as geometric sans-serif.

 

Pair it with:

Roboto, Futura, and Times New Roman.

3. Baskerville

This font was created in the 1750s by John Baskerville and it’s classified as transitional serif that found its original use in book prints.

 

Pair it with:

Lucida Grande, Helvetica Neue, and Georgia.

4. Futura

Strangely enough, this futuristic font was created in 1927 by Paul Renner. It captures the Bauhaus design spirit, focusing on geometric shapes, especially the circle. It’s considered a geometric sans-serif.

 

Pair it with:

Helvetica, Open Sans, and Trade Gothic.

 

5. Georgia

This serif font was designed by Matthew Carter in 1993 for Microsoft. It was intended to be a legible font for small print or low-resolution screens. It gets its name from a tabloid headline claiming “Alien heads found in Georgia.”

 

Pair it with:

Helvetica Neue, Arial, and Lucida Grande.

6. Palatino

This font was named after the 16th-century calligraphy master, Giambattista Palatino. It was designed in 1949 by Hermann Zapf and is considered an old-style serif. This font was originally designed to be used for headings and to be read clearly on poor quality paper or legible at a distance.

 

Pair it with:

Helvetica Neue, Avenir Next, and Arial.

 

7. Museo Sans

This font is designed to be a  highly legible sans serif typeface for any display and text use. It was created by Jos Buivenga.

 

Pair it with:

Freight Sans Pro, Brandon Grotesque, and Garamond Premier.

8. Bodoni

Bondoni was designed by Giambattista Bodoni in the late 18th-century. Similar to the style of Baskerville, this font is a serif with alternating thick and thin strokes. Bondoni is mostly used as a heading.

 

Pair it with:

Futura, Gill Sans, and Sentinel.

9. Rockwell

This font was designed by the Monotype Corporation and released in 1934. It’s considered a geometric slab serif and is primarily used for display.

Pair it with:

Bembo, Gill Sans, and Bella.

10. Caslon

This font was designed by William Caslon the 1700s and it’s considered an old-style serif. It was popular for body text and books. Caslon can be identified by its italic ‘J’ which has a crossbar, forming the pound sign.

 

Pair it with:

Brandon Grotesque, Myriad Pro, and Museo Sans.

To find out more, check out 10 classic fonts for presentation or visit our blog.