Mastering Font Pairing: Tips and Techniques for Designers

In this post, we will cover font pairing. This skill can be challenging for both beginning and more experienced designers, so I always recommend finding a method for font picking and pairing before jumping head into an infinite scroll of typefaces and fonts.

To start, I’ll cover the basics and then go into a step-by-step approach to font pairing that will help you tackle your projects like a true professional!

The Basics of Font Pairing

Typography and font pairing are as vital to graphic design as drawing shapes, editing images, or working with beautiful color palettes. Font pairing is the combination of different typefaces or fonts to ensure both aesthetic harmony and efficient communication.

What’s the difference between typefaces and fonts, you may ask? Easy!

• A Typeface is the overall design of a group – or family – of characters that share common design features, like shape, serifs, balance, or spacing.

• Fonts are specific versions or variations within a typeface, such as different sizes, weight, or style.

Let’s move on to Typeface Categories and take a look at the ones that you will be using regularly if you work as a graphic designer.

Typeface Categories identify the design style behind each typeface. These styles are key for understanding the psychology behind typography and, ultimately, helping you with selecting and pairing choices.

• Serif Fonts have small decorative strokes, or serifs, at the end of their letters. They convey a sense of tradition and formality and are a strong choice for editorial design.

• Sans Serif Fonts don’t have stroke decorations, display a clean and modern appearance, and are the best choice for digital media.  

• Script Fonts are similar to human handwriting and calligraphy and convey a sense of elegance and personal attention. They are great for logo design!

• Display Fonts are designed for stealing the show. They can be bold and heavy or unusual and surprising, perfect for headlines or short text blocks that stand out.

One last set of definitions: let’s clarify the difference between legibility and readability and understand why these are so important to font pairing.

Legibility refers to how easily a reader can identify each individual character in a word or sentence. Legibility can be influenced by each typeface style, size, and spacing between letters, or kerning.

Readability focuses on how easily a reader can understand text as a whole. Kerning and leading, the space between lines of text, are vital for a comfortable reading experience.

To master font pairing you will also need to find balance between contrast and cohesion in your design.

Contrasting fonts capture attention and create visual interest – people will spend more time looking at your message, creating a deeper connection with it.

Similar fonts harmonize with a design in a comfortable and consistent way – people will feel safe and trust your message, creating a positive emotional response.

• In the first example, I used contrast to attract attention, by pairing two different typeface categories, display and script. It’s appealing but it feels like something is off.

• In the second example, cohesion holds everything together because I paired two fonts from one single typeface. Looks all nice and solid, but it feels a bit boring.

• In the third example, I tried to find a balance between both contrast and cohesion, by pairing a serif font with a sans-serif font and keeping their styles simple and legible.   

A strong font pairing should support your message, be visually appealing and consistent with context and identity.

Before we move on, check out the image below to understand how you should carefully consider context while picking the best fonts for your design.

Can you tell which one feels like an adequate font choice? I’m 100% sure you can.

Let 's push on!

Font Pairing Tips

Below, I share my recommendation for how you should plan and manage font picking and font pairing in your designs. It’s my take on it, based on my experience. I encourage you to read this, use what you feel makes sense to you and, over time, develop your own method. 

Step 1 – Purpose

Consider your the goal of your design. Are you trying to inform your readers about something meaningful? Maybe persuading them to sign up for a newsletter or buy a product? Or are you surprising them with a cool new logo? Always stay focused and true to the goal of your design. 

Step 2 – Typeface and Font

Once you know what your goal is, it’s time to browse your typeface and font categories to understand which ones that best fit your context and deliver your message in an aesthetically appealing and efficient way.        

Step 3 - Contrast

Contrasting fonts create visual interest and keep your readers connected to your message. Combine different styles like serif and sans-serif or display and script for that extra “wow factor”. You can even combine two different fonts from the same typeface, but remember to keep it balanced and consistent, a boring design will make them move their attention to something else, too much complexity will overwhelm them and scare them away.

Imagine you’re inside the coolest sports car ever, but staring at something that looks like an airplane cockpit’s dashboard. It just wouldn’t work, right?

So, the key is: interesting and efficient.

Step 4 - Hierarchy

Font pairing is needed for everything you design that contains text, from a simple logo to a magazine spread. Use different fonts, sizes and weights to lead your readers across the layout and establish a clear visual hierarchy. Show them what you’re communicating, what’s important to memorize, how the message expands and when it’s time to take some kind of action. Hierarchy is one of the most important design principles and it should be strongly considered.

There are two major points in this design that trap the reader’s priority and call for emotional response:

1. The band’s name (yes, my favorite band is on tour!) 

2. Tickets are available, NOW! (I gotta buy them right now or I’ll miss the show!)

Step 5 – Keep things simple  

Use 2 or 3 fonts in your design, or things will feel cluttered and disconnected. Remember you need contrast, but you also need cohesion. A clean design will create a positive emotional response. That’s what we’re aiming for!

Step 6 – Legibility and Readability

You should be feeling confident and happy with your font picks and pairings by now. That’s great, of course, but this is not about you, it’s about who you are designing for, so it’s time to put on your empathy shoes!

Pay close attention, because this is when many of us make the first mistake, only a few steps away from the finish line!

Even if your work checks every step we’ve been through so far, never forget to test your design for legibility and readability. Your message should be clear and meaningful to people of all ages, genders, social and cultural backgrounds. You will also want to keep accessibility differences in mind – from visual impairments to lighting factors or different screen sizes. Make things easy to read and they will be easy to understand and respond to.

Step 7 – Resources

You don’t have to do all this work by yourself. Do some research and take advantage of the wide variety of online resources that will help guide you along the way and save you precious amounts of time. These resources exist to make your work easier and more enjoyable, but don’t place them above your own instincts and experience.

Below I have shared a few of the most popular online resources. I’m not saying these are the best, there are many others to explore. Choose the ones best suited to your workflow and method. 

Adobe Fonts

Adobe fonts provide thousands of different typefaces and fonts and is an excellent resource for Adobe Creative Cloud subscribers.

Google Fonts

Google Fonts is an incredible free collection of over 1.000 typefaces and fonts. You can navigate through categories, language, popularity, and other options with just a few clicks.

FontPair

An online resource that helps students and designers pair Google fonts together. FontPair also offers a vast collection of free fonts, examples of font pairs in use, and a Figma plugin for UI design. 

Typewolf

Typewolf is a great website for inspiration for students and designers. They offer a wide variety of real-world use cases, font selections, and learning resources.

Fontjoy

A quick and easy, one-click-resource for font pairing. Fontjoy uses deep learning AI to suggest font combinations and displays them on screen in a way that helps you test aesthetics, legibility and readability. You can also manually set the contrast level between fonts, from very similar to high contrasting. Don’t miss it!

And there we have it!

We’re done! I hope you find these tips and resources clarifying and useful. You now have a command of typography, typefaces and fonts, and of the most important principles to consider when choosing fonts for your design.

What 's Next?

To continue growing your design skills, join BYOL and you will gain access to 30+ courses like Illustrator, Figma, Photoshop,  Lightroom, Premiere Pro, Webflow, and more. As a BYOL member you will also enjoy personalized support, earn certificates, and tackle exciting community challenges. 

See you in class! – Dan