A Beginner's Guide to Pairing Fonts | Webdesigntuts+ - 2 views
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Using multiple fonts together can be difficult, achieving harmony is challenging, but if you manage it the result can be decorative and striking. Use fewer fonts and your task is more straight forward. Try to make the best of both worlds by selecting fonts with multiple variants and weights. In this way you can take advantage of an array of styles, safe in the knowledge that they’ll compliment each other just fine.
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What’s the Nature of my Content? When selecting fonts it’s important to consider the nature of the layout you’re dealing with. Are we talking mainly body copy? Are there multiple headings, sub-headings? Perhaps it’s a magazine layout with decks, blockquotes? When using multiple fonts make sure that the roles are clearly established; if one font is used as a sub-heading, don’t switch to another font for a sub-heading elsewhere. Keep a font’s purpose clear.
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How Do I Achieve Successful Pairing? You might have already heard this; successful pairing relies on concord, or contrast, but not conflict. That is to say your selected fonts can work well together by sharing certain qualities, or by being completely different from one another. However, font pairs can conflict in a number of ways – being too similar being just one.
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The x-height of a font describes the height from the base line to the upper reaches of the lower case characters, like the x. A proportionately large x-height helps with readability.
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Pairing 2: Contrast Contrast between fonts often lends a winning combination, but in what ways can fonts contrast? Here are just some qualities to look for: Style: Take a look at any font resource site and you’ll see them categorized as Blackletter, Monospace, Script, Slab Serif etc. Fonts of different styles will often contrast. Size: Big font, little font. Say no more. Weight: Varying the weight of fonts is a common way to establish visual hierarchy. Hierarchy achieved by contrast. Form: Consider the proportions of a typeface. The relative length of the descenders, the curvature of the shoulders, the direction of the movement. Color: Not something we’re going to go into here, but color can easily determine whether two fonts work well together.
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It’s a classic way of pairing; take a decorative serif for the heading and a sure-footed sans-serif for the body. Or take a no-nonsense sans-serif for the headings, with a pleasantly legible serif for the body. A winner in many cases. Let’s look at a few, kicking off with two system fonts. That’s right, even they can work well together.
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Condensed fonts always work well to get your attention, as they take up a lot of vertical real estate.
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Pairing 3: Conflict Let’s not focus too much on what doesn’t work well, we don’t want to sour the joyous combinations in the rest of this guide do we? That said, let’s just illustrate how two fonts, which are arguably too similar, can look awkward together.
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Once you’ve concluded that you don’t like a font pairing, try to work out why and it will help you make decisions more quickly in the future.