5 great typographies you can download for free on Google Fonts

How to choose the right typography?

There’s no question that web fonts are a hot topic. It seems like, after decades of insistence, the world is finally coming to see things the way designers do: typography matters, and it’s important to get it right.

If you’re part of a large organization, you can probably afford to create your own typefaces – it seems like everyone who’s anyone has their own font these days. But if you’re starting out, resources like Google Fonts are an ideal way to establish your brand, deliver your copy and even speed up your website.

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Why are fonts so important?

When you’re designing a website, it can be easy to settle for the default fonts and focus on other, seemingly more important decisions. However, not only would this be a mistake: you’d be missing out on the power of fonts and the benefits they can bring to your site. In your prototyping tool, seeing the final font in all its glory can shed new light on your product. Here are some examples of how choosing the right fonts can benefit your website.

Fonts are vital for UX

Typography is one of the most critical aspects of UX design. Choosing the wrong font for your copy or navigation can make the text illegible and your website unusable.

Our colleague Steven put together this list of questions you should ask yourself when picking the best font for your website:

• How many weights does the font have?
• Is readability good owing to the x-height?
• Does this font scale well on multiple devices?
• Is it accessible?
• What is its contrast ratio?

If your chosen font has a decent range of weights, meets accessibility, x-height and contrast ratio standards and can be read easily on any device, it’s probably a safe bet. Remember: just because you, a knowledgeable and very attractive designer, prefer a font, doesn’t mean that it’s the right choice for your website. Once you’ve decided on a font, it’s always worth carrying out some user testing to see how readers respond to your font choices.

As for mobile apps, check out our post on the best fonts for apps.

Lato

Warsaw-based designer, Łukasz Dziedzic, created Lato to work transparently in body text and also to stand out individually when used in larger-sized titles. This sans serif typeface family is simultaneously familiar and different – most especially in the way some of the font’s details are rounded off.

Merriweather

Eben Sorkin’s Merriweather is designed for optimal readability on screens. Merriweather’s large x-height boosts the font’s legibility, making it suitable for use in long texts as well as for headlines and titles. Merriweather currently has 8 styles: Light, Regular, Bold, Black, Light Italic, Italic, Bold Italic, Black Italic.

Montserrat

Founded out of a Kickstarter project in 2011, Montserrat aims to “rescue the beauty of urban typography that emerged in the first half of the twentieth century”. This attractive sans serif font family was created by Julieta Ulanovsky, and is named after the Montserrat neighborhood in Buenos Aires where she lives.

Arapey

Arapey doesn’t offer too many different styles, but it’s still a wonderful Google font. The typeface has a modern structure, but still enjoys soft lines that makes for a great way to highlight content. Our designers love this font for its italic style, which is quite gentle and adds a certain glamour to any content.

Nunito

Another Vernon Adams creation, Nunito is a sans-serif font designed as a display font. With 8 different weights available, it’s a versatile, attractive font which we’d recommend using when you want a smart, stylish sans-serif heading.

Another great thing about using Google Fonts on your website is that even if you’re just getting started with creating your website, they’re really easy to use.

Conclusion

Google Fonts are an incredibly powerful and versatile resource for your website. Giving you access to over 900 fonts, Google Fonts can make your website look better while boosting its performance and improving the overall speed of the internet. Even better, Google makes it easy to get started with Google Fonts on your website.

Integrate Google Fonts into your website now and you won’t look back!

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