Web typography is currently riding a wave of endless creativity, with Google Fonts establishing itself as an invaluable resource for digital designers. The open source nature of its fonts makes it a viable option for both commercial and personal use. With it being a Google tool, Accessibility is of course key, with its high quality selection of web and mobile typography, taking into account legibility and readability.
The use of typography as a principal design element in the latest trends, means Google Fonts is now a more valuable resource than ever. Its interface and download system is very intuitive and comfortable, whilst allowing you to compare all the fonts and styles available to satisfy the current creative landscape that is fusing bold typography, serif and display fonts, big paragraphs, decorative-styles, and more. Read more about typography taking centre stage here Typography is the new black. Trends in web design
Top recommended Google Web Fonts
Here you can find a selection of fonts that we have chosen due to their aesthetic aspect, but above all functionality, containing families with many styles and weights.
We have highlighted fonts that are optimized for interfaces, UI Optimized web fonts, and others that are especially legible in paragraphs, or particularly comfortable for reading on mobile and legible on any device - be it smartphone, desktop or tablet.
- Alegreya
- B612
- Muli
- Titillium Web
- Varela
- Vollkorn
- IBM Plex
- Crimson Text
- Cairo
- BioRhyme
- Karla
- Lora
- Frank Ruhl Libre
- Playfair Display
- Archivo
- Spectral
- Fjalla One
- Roboto
- Montserrat
- Rubik
- Source Sans
- Cardo
- Cormorant
- Work Sans
- Rakkas
- Concert One
- Yatra One
- Arvo
- Lato
- Abril FatFace
- Ubuntu
- PT Serif
- Old Standard TT
- Oswald
Fonts Optimized for UI
- PT Sans
- Poppins
- Fira Sans
- Nunito
- Oxygen
Fonts Optimized for Legibility and Readability
- Exo 2
- Open Sans
- Merriweather
- Noto Sans
- Source Sans Pro
How to use Web Fonts
At this point everyone knows how to use web fonts, but if you’re not sure, you only need to know that there are two ways. The first is to use web fonts services like Google Fonts, Webtype, Fonts.com or Typekit and download the font from their servers, as you’ll see in the following example: 1. Web font embedding services
The second is to host the font in your server and use @font-face rule in your stylesheet as you can see here: 2. Embedding fonts using the @font-face rule
Web font embedding services
Google Web Fonts (GWF) or Typekit are systems which allow the use of fonts hosted on their servers. GWF is free to use, does not require you to have an account, and has no limit on traffic or domains unlike Typekit. Typekit sets the cost of the service according to the number of domains in which the font is used, or the site’s monthly traffic. One of the most valued characteristics of GWF is the option to download a desktop version of the fonts for use in the project design phase.
Implementation
It really is quick and simple:
1. Choose a font. You can add it to your collection or use “quick-use” to generate the code and options for that font.
2. Copy and paste the code generated into your <Head>
<head> <link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="http://fonts.googleapis.com/css?family=Tangerine"> </head>
3. The font is now accessible in your CSS code
body { font-family: 'Tangerine', serif; font-size: 48px; }
Here you can consult an extended manual for styles, script subsets, and using multiple fonts.
Embedding fonts using the @font-face rule
Fonts are hosted on the user’s server independently of external services. @font-face was a deprecated CSS2 rule that has been re-introduced in CSS3 specifications and is supported by almost all modern browsers. A web font is a customized font which is supported by different browsers and comes in formats such as TTF, WOFF, EOT and SVG.
@font-face { font-family: 'ChunkFiveRegular'; src: url('Chunkfive-webfont.eot'); src: url('Chunkfive-webfont.eot?#iefix') format('embedded-opentype'), url('Chunkfive-webfont.woff') format('woff'), url('Chunkfive-webfont.ttf') format('truetype'), url('Chunkfive-webfont.svg#ChunkFiveRegular') format('svg'); font-weight: normal; font-style: normal; }
