When making a video, every little detail matters. Text plays an important role in your video, and together with it, the text color, size, and font.
Finding a perfect font pair for your video might seem like a daunting task, what with all the free fonts available out there. We collected 28 great examples of how you can combine fonts in your next video masterpiece, together with actionable tips from Wave.video designers. All of these fonts are free and available in the Wave.video editor.
Tip 1. Establish a visual hierarchy
When watching the video, your viewers need to clearly understand the message that you are trying to convey. Oftentimes, you only have the first few seconds to grab their attention. This is especially true for Instagram Stories and video ads.
Direct your viewers’ attention to what matters the most by enlargening the most important part of the message. However, make sure there is not too much stuff highlighted. Otherwise, it will make the video cluttered and create unnecessary visual “noise”.
Great for: highlighting numbers, percents, dates.
Font pair 1: Merriweather Sans + Abril Fatface
Merriweather Sans is a low-contrast semi-condensed font family that is easy to read at any size. On the contrary, Abril Fatface was designed for a strong presence on the page and attracting attention by its curves. It’s great for titles, too.
How it looks in the video:
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Tip 2. Use the fonts of contrasting sizes
Another way to ensure the visual hierarchy in your video is to use fonts of contrasting sizes. The text that you want to highlight needs to be of a significantly bigger size than the rest of the message.
For instance, in this video, the difference between the two font sizes is 50 points. This helps us establish the hierarchy and draw attention to what’s more important in the phrase.
Great for: titles in the video
Font pair 2: Lato Italic + Montserrat Bold
Lato is a sans-serif font family that was created in the summer of 2010 by a Polish designer Łukasz Dziedzic. “Lato” means “summer” in Polish. Sleek and balanced, Lato looks quite “transparent” when used in the body text but at the same time, shows some originality traits when used in larger sizes and fonts.
Montserrat offers a great font pair to Lato. To make the contrast even more vivid, try italicizing Lato and make Montserrat bold.
How it looks in the video:
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Font pair 3: Raleway + Oswald Bold
Raleway is an elegant sans-serif font family. It’s great both for regular text and numerals. Oswald, on the other hand, is based on a classic gothic typeface style. Together, they make a great match for text on video.
How it looks in video:
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Font pair 4: Oswald Light + Limelight
Limelight is a rendition from a classic art deco font. This style fits well with the 1920s time period, as well as cinema and theater-related videos.
The “lighter” variation of Oswald pairs well with Limelight.
How it looks in the video:
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Tip 3. Assign a distinct “role” to each font
In the video, every detail that you add has to have a purpose. Assigning a specific “role” to each font will make it easier for your viewers to understand the video message. For example, you can use one font for all the headings in the video and another one – for the body text.
For some fonts, we already have a distinct association in our heads. For instance, oftentimes cursive fonts are used to imitate handwriting. Or the stylish typewriter fonts are meant to resemble the actual typewriting on an old-fashion device.
For instance, when sharing inspirational quotes, use a distinct “handwritten” font for the author’s name. This will give your videos the feeling of authenticity.
Great for: visual quotes.
Font pair 5: PT Sans + PT Serif
In this font pair, PT Sans is used for the body of the text while we use PT Serif for the author’s name. Notice how even the variations of the same font superfamily work great together.
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Font pair 6: Roboto Slab Bold + Open Sans Italic
Open Sans was designed with a neutral yet friendly appearance and was optimized both for press and web. Pair this font with Roboto Slab for a sleek look.
How it looks in the video:
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Tip 4. Combine a serif font with a sans serif
In typography, “sans serif“ is a font or typeface that doesn’t have extending features called “serifs” at the end of strokes. They are often used for headings rather than body text. San-serif fonts have also become widely spread for the web copy. There is a simple reason behind it: on low-resolution screens, small strokes might be difficult to read or might disappear completely.
Examples of sans serif fonts include Lato, Verdana, Helvetica, Tahoma, and Lucida Grande (together with many-many others, of course).
Source
Serif, on the other hand, has all the little serifs and extensions at the end of the stroke. Here are a few examples of serif fonts: Times New Roman, Arno, Courier, and Garamond.
When you pair fonts, one of the basic rules is to combine a sans serif font with a serif font. This way, they balance each other.
Font pair 7: Gravitas One + Monda
Gravitas One was designed as a heavy advertising type. Notice the contrast between its thick vertical lines and very thing horizontal ones. It looks best when used in the medium to large sizes. Great for video ads of any kind.
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Font pair 8: Open Sans Light + Merriweather Light Italic
To give your videos a sense of novelty, try using different variations of the same font. You can try making the font bold or italicizing it.
How it looks in the video:
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Font pair 9: Ultra + Monserrat Bold
Make the contrast between the two fonts even more distringuishable by enlargening the word in Ultra.
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Font pair 10: Georgia Italic + Roboto Condensed Italic
Classy. Great for video ads in industries like retail and real estate.
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Tip 5. Combine distinct fonts with neutral ones
Think of fonts as people. If you try to mix together two people with very strong personalities, it might get overwhelming. Both of them will have too big a role to play in this relationship, and conflicts are inevitable.
This rule works for font pairs as well. When you try to combine a distinct font with lots of character with a similarly strong one, they might clash and contradict each other. Instead, go for a more neutral, calm font. This works especially well when you are trying to combine calligraphy or handwritten fonts with regular, plain ones.
Great for: announcements, video ads, special offers.
Here are a few examples.
Font pair 11: Montserrat + Dancing Script
The name of the Dancing Script speaks for itself. It was designed for bright, vivid, playful text on video. Combine it with a more balanced Montserrat for a finished look.
How it looks in the video:
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Font pair 12: Petit Formal Script + Roboto
Petit Formal Script was specifically designed to be used on the web. Despite the fact that it can be set to as small as 13px, make sure you make the text distinguishable in your video. Petit Formal Script pairs well with Roboto.
How it looks in the video:
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Font pair 13: Damion + Archivo Black
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Font pair 14: Oswald Bold + Damion
Notice how the cursive Damion is balanced by the neutral Oswald Bold. To ensure that the cursive text is well-readable in your video, make it slightly larger.
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Font pair 15: Yellowtail + Oswald Bold
Yellowtail is an old-school font that descends from the 1930s classic typefaces. It makes a great pair with Oswald Bold.
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Font pair 16: Yellowtail + Monserrat
Another Yellowtail combination with a more neutral font is with Montserrat. Great for stylish old-school ads and short videos.
How it looks in the video:
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Font pair 17: Alegreya SC + Pacifico
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Tip 6. Don’t use more than two fonts in one video
When it comes to pairing fonts, there is one golden rule: the fewer fonts you use, the better. In other words, don’t try to put all the fancy fonts you have in your arsenal into one video. This will spoil the picture and make it look cluttered.
The rule stays true even if you don’t apply all the different fonts to one slide in your video but rather use different fonts in different slides. Make sure your fonts and colors in the video are consistent. This will make it easier and more pleasant for your viewers to watch the video.
Great for: any video
Font pair 18: Georgia Italic + Montserrat Bold
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Font pair 19: Tangerine + Raleway
If you need the text in your video to convey different types of information or have different weights, instead of using different fonts, try using the same font but of various sizes. This will help you highlight what’s most important in your video.
How it looks in the video:
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Font pair 20: Montserrat Bold + Tahu
In this video template, Tahu has a lot of “character” while Montserrat is one of our favorite neutral fonts. To really tie the whole video together, try applying the same color to the text messages on different slides.
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Tip 7. Pair the fonts of the same style
Some fonts are more universal and can be used for any purpose. Others have a distinct look and feel. We might associate them with a certain epoch or purpose.
For instance, when we think of the 1920s, we immediately imagine signs that we might have seen in the Gatsby movie. Like this:
Source
It would be strange to pair this font with something much more modern, coming from a completely different era.
To give your videos a consistent look, make sure you use the fonts of the same style and look. If you are not sure whether they pair well, try using a more neutral font instead of one of them. Here are a few examples.
Font pair 21: Oleo Script + Garamond
These vintage-style fonts immediately create a retro atmosphere in the video.
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Font pair 22: Raleway + Oswald
Simple, sleek, and stylish, this is a perfect font pair for announcements, webinar promotions, and short informative social media videos.
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Font pair 23: Playfair Italic + Georgia
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Tip 8. When hesitant, use different styles of the same font
Sometimes there are just too many fonts to choose from, and you might feel at a loss. Fret not: when hesitant, simply use different variations of the same fonts. By “variations” we mean bold or italic but also different font sizes.
Here are some examples.
Font pair 24: Oswald Bold + Oswald Light
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Font pair 25: Poppins Bold + Poppins Italic
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Font pair 26: Georgia + Georgia Italic
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Font pair 27: Open Sans Light Italic + Open Sans Regular
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Font pair 28: Playfair Bold + Playfair Italic
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Tools to find a perfect font pair
If you want to find THAT ideal font pair for your videos, here are some helpful websites and tools that will make the task easier for you.
1.FontJoy
FontJoy generates font combinations with deep learning. If you have one font that you would like to use, you can add it to the website, and the program will suggest font pairs. You can also lock one of the fonts (either the header or body), and FontJoy will only keep generating the font for the second part.
2. WhatTheFont
If you saw a font somewhere and want to know what the font it is, this app is just for you. Think of it as Shazam for fonts.
3. FontPair
FontPair is a great collection of ready-made font pairings. You can filter by different font types (like Display/Sans Serif, etc.) or dig into popular fonts and find a pair for them.
Conclusion
When looking for a perfect font pair for your video, go for something simpler, don’t use too many fonts, and combine neutral fonts with those with lots of “character”.
How do you like to combine fonts in your videos? Share in the comments below!
In this guide, you will find 28 best font pairs for your videos, together with free templates.