typography:-principals for combining typefaces
Contrast
Contrast is one of the most important concepts to understand when it comes to combining typefaces. Without proper contrast, typefaces tend to clash, creating a random, scattered look to your designs (and not in a good way). Creating proper contrast relies on a few principles, all of which are discussed below.
But first, what exactly is contrast? Contrast is the amount of difference between two typefaces. Typefaces that are too similar tend to clash. Your mind doesn’t instantly recognize that they’re different typefaces, and when it finally does, it’s jarring. Typefaces that are too dissimilar can appear haphazard and accidental, which can be just as jarring.
Weight
The weight of a typeface plays a huge role in its appearance. We often think of weight in terms of “light”, “regular”, “medium”, “bold”, etc. But different typefaces have varying weights to begin with. Combining typefaces based largely on weight is a fairly straight-forward way of creating typographic contrast.
You’ll want to look for typefaces that have noticeable difference in weight, without being too extreme. Very extreme differences in weight need to be made up for with similarities in other respects, particularly structure and style.
Style and Decoration
The style of a typeface has a huge impact on how it’s received. Generally, when working with styles, you’re going to be either using regular or italic styles. Underlines are also used, but in web design, they should only be used for links (otherwise, they’re confusing). Other decorations include things like outlines or drop shadows, both of which can be used to unify varying typefaces.
Style and decoration can also be used to create contrast within a type family or typeface. Combine regular and italic fonts, varying weights, and things like shadows or outlines to create variation within a font family and sufficient typographic contrast.
Scale and Hierarchy
The scale of typefaces, or their size relative to one another, is another important factor in combining typefaces. The hierarchy of different elements within the design is greatly influenced by the scale of the typefaces used. For example, your headings should obviously be larger than your paragraph copy. To the same end, your H1 headings should be larger than your H2 headings, and so forth.
As a general rule, your hierarchy should start with your H1 heading being the largest, and your meta information or captions should be the smallest. You need to balance the differences in scale with differences in weight and style, too, so that you don’t have too much variation in size between your largest and smallest fonts.
Classificiation
In general, when combining typefaces, you’ll want to choose ones that aren’t from the same classification. Combine a serif and a sans-serif, or a serif and a script, etc., and you’ll have a much easier time coming up with a combination that has proper contrast and doesn’t clash.
Combining typefaces within the same classification is sometimes possible, but there are some extra considerations. For one, you want to find typefaces that are different enough that they’re immediately recognizable as different typefaces, while also using typefaces that have similar moods, structures, and other factors that tie them together. To some extent, trial and error is your best bet for finding typefaces within the same classification that can work together.
One trick is to choose typefaces that are in the same general classification, but fall under different sub-classes (such as a slab serif and a modern serif, or a geometric sans serif with a grotesk). This provides more contrast right from the start.
Structure
The structure of a typeface plays a huge role in how it works with other typefaces. You either need to choose typefaces that have very, very similar structures, or very different structures. Letter-forms that are only a bit similar are going to clash. Typefaces that are very different in other ways can be unified by their similar structures, though the reverse rarely works as well.
Look at the letterforms side-by-side and see if they share a similar shape or other factor (such as x-height). It’s better to go with wildly different structures than structure that’s almost the same but not quite.
Color and Texture
When you need to add visual contrast or unify disparate typefaces, the use of color and texture can do wonders. For example, when you need to add contrast among typefaces that are nearly identical (or within a single type family), changing the color of some elements instantly adds interest. Adding texture has the same effect.
Alternatively, if you have wildly different typefaces, color and texture and unify those typefaces, creating a harmonious look. The principles of color theory still apply to typography, so be sure you don’t go overboard combining colors.
Extreme Contrast
Extreme contrast can be a great option if you’re working with display or script typefaces. In these instances, it can be difficult to find typefaces with good contrast that aren’t too dissimilar. So rather than trying to do that, go for completely different typefaces. Try combining a rather simple typeface with something more elaborate for the best results, rather than two elaborate typefaces.
Mood
The mood of the typefaces you select is vital to the way they work together. Mood can be anything from formal to casual, fun to serious, modern to classic, or anything in between. This is where a lot of people run into trouble with combining typefaces. Selecting typefaces that not only have similar (or complementary) moods, but also have moods to match the project you’re designing is crucial.
typography: pulling it alltogether
Headlines and Paragraphs
The headline and paragraph are two of the most basic building blocks of the typography of a design. In some cases, a heading and paragraph may be the only kinds of typographic information present in a design. Because of this, they’re often given great precedence in the design process.
So let’s start with these two elements, and we’ll expand from there. Here are some examples of effective typeface combinations, starting with the least difficult.
The absolute simplest way to create a headline/paragraph combination is to use the same typeface for both, but with different weights and sizes. Here, we’ve combined Adobe Caslon: Regular for the paragraph copy and Bold for the headline. It’s simple and formal, but can be a bit boring.
The next easiest is to select fonts from the same family. Here we have Fontin Bold for the headline and Fontin Sans for the paragraph copy. Again, change around the weight and size to get better contrast. There are a lot of typeface families that include both serif and sans serif typefaces, including Droid Sans and Droid Serif, and Museo and Museo Sans.
Probably the most common method of combining typefaces is to pair a serif with a sans-serif. In print design, serifs are generally used for the body copy, while sans-serifs are used as headlines. The opposite is more generally true online, though both can work in either setting. Here, we’ve combined Lucida Sans for the headline with Crimson Text for the paragraph copy.
Here we’ve combined Rockwell Bold for the headline and Gill Sans for the paragraph type. Both of these typefaces have a basis in geometric shapes, and therefore they work well together. If you look at the letter “o” especially, you’ll see that in both typefaces, it’s almost a perfect circle (the same is true for the bowls of the letters in both).
Both the typefaces here are clean and modern. The headline is SF New Republic SC and the paragraph is Hero Light.
Here’s another set with a similar mood and style, this time old-fashioned or antique. The headline is Tagettes and the paragraph copy is Goudy Bookletter 1911.
Mixing a strong typeface with a more neutral one can also be a great technique, especially on the web. Here, we have Dancing Script for the headline and Georgia for the paragraph copy.
The trickiest typeface combination technique is probably creating a combination from two radically different typefaces. It’s tricky because it’s so easy to go wrong. Just because two typefaces are radically different doesn’t mean they’ll automatically work together. And when one of those typefaces also needs to be legible as paragraph text, it makes things that much more difficult.
The example above combines Tallys for the paragraph copy with DayPosterBlack for the headline. Tallys is a decidedly traditional-looking typeface, with a fairly light stroke weight. DayPosterBlack, by contrast, is a strong, modern, almost sci-fi-looking typeface.
This is one of those techniques that’s best achieved through simple trial-and-error. Try out a bunch of different combinations and see which ones look good together. You may have to try out a dozen or more combinations before you find one that works well because of it’s contrast.
Beyond Headlines and Paragraphs
Headlines and paragraphs, while important, are only one small part of a lot of designs, especially blogs and news sites. Below are a few more types of typographic elements you may find yourself using.
Pull-Quotes
With pull quotes, there are a couple of different options. First, you can simply use the body copy typeface for your pull quotes, but in a larger size, and possibly a different weight:
It doesn’t look bad, but it’s also kind of boring having both the paragraph and pull quote in Times.
Another option is to use the headline typeface, in this case Dancing Script, for your pull quote. This is more interesting, and definitely draws more attention to the pull quote, but it’s not going to work in every situation. As a general rule, the more decorative your headline font, the worse it will work for pull quotes. You can get away with a script, but anything more decorative than that isn’t going to look right.
The other options with pull quotes is to use a typeface completely different from your headline and paragraph choices. In this case, we’ve used Anivers for the pull quote, Times for the paragraph, and Dancing Script for the headline. Consider the guidelines for combining paragraph and headline typefaces, and use the same general guidelines. In this case, since the paragraph text is a serif and the headline is a script, it made sense to use a sans-serif for the pull quote. Using a weight for the pull quote that’s roughly the same as the weight for the headline helps tie everything together.
Meta Information
Meta information is going to be found on virtually every blog or news site out there. This includes things like the category or tag information, the time the article was posted, and other similar information. Sometimes, it also includes the by-line of the author. Again, there are a couple of different ways to approach the typography for this kind of information.
The first thing you need to remember, though, is that meta information is usually displayed quite small, and sometimes in a lighter color. This rules out a large number of potential typeface choices, as you need something that’s legible at an 8 or 10 point size.
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