The type of font pairings you choose is likely to vary depending on the type of project you're working on. What font pairings should I choose for different types of projects? The result is a highly distinctive text face that later spawned a sans-serif companion. Century Gothic & PT SerifĪn exljbris creation, Calluna was born out of an experiment with adding slab serifs to Museo, giving designer Jos Buivenga the idea of 'serifs with direction'. If you need to brush up on your typography knowledge, take a look at our typography tutorials. The best font pairings: 36 perfect examplesįind more tips below, but here's our pick of some of our favourite font pairings for inspiration. Again, geometric sans serifs marry best with these. This third sub-category includes Bodoni, Didot, New Century Schoolbook and Walbaum. These pair with geometric sans serifs like Avant Garde, Avenir, Century Gothic, Eurostile, Futura and Univers.įinally, modern serifs tend to have a very dramatic contrast between thick and thin for a more pronounced, stylised effect, as well as a larger x-height. Transitional serifs have a stronger contrast between thick and thin strokes (examples include Bookman, Mrs. Generally speaking, Old Style serifs such as Bembo, Caslon and Garamond will combine well with Humanist sans serifs like Gill Sans and Lucida Grande. 'Serif' and 'sans serif' are very broad classifications, and each can be split into several sub-categories. You can use a single font and adjust the weight, the size or the colour. This applies even if you're not pairing fonts. You also need to establish a clear hierarchy in your font pairings: what will be the purpose of each one? Which will be for display and which for body text. For example, if you have a really unique display face full of personality, you'll need something more neutral to do the hard work and create a balance. It's important to balance personalities in font pairings too. Our mind ends up confused – is this a different font or not? Good contrast is often provided by pairing a serif font with a sans-serif font. For example, overly similar serifs or similar sans serifs don't tend to look nice next to each other. If typefaces are too similar, it's likely that they'll conflict. This font is used only for demos (Demo license).Contrasting fonts can be hard to find as you're effectively searching for two fonts that are different but also complement each other rather than causing conflict. It mixes well with virtually any serif design and a surprisingly large number of sans serif faces. Optima is also about as gregarious as a typeface can be. It’s not that readability is affected that much when Optima is set on the snug side it’s just that the unhurried elegance and light gray typographic color created by the face are disrupted when letters are set too tight. If there are any guidelines, Optima should be set more open than tight. It can be set quite tight, or even slightly open – especially the capitals. Optima also benefits from a wide range of letter spacing capability. In fact, there are few limits to the amount of white space that can be added between lines of text. Optima can be set within a wide choice of line spacing values – from very tight to very open. The lowercase a and g in Optima are high-legibility two-storied designs. The M is splayed, and the N, like a serif design, has light vertical strokes. Consistent with other Zapf designs, the cap S in Optima appears slightly top-heavy with a slight tilt to the right. Only the E, F and L deviate with narrow forms. True to its Roman heritage, Optima has wide, full-bodied characters – especially in the capitals. Although Optima is almost always grouped with sans serif typefaces, it should be considered a serifless roman. Simultaneously standing out and fitting in, there are few projects or imaging environments outside of its range. Many typefaces are distinctive or attractive at the expense of legibility and versatility.

When you’re ready to find its perfect pairing, browse these fantastic matches: Monotype Century Old Style™, Dante®, Frutiger® Serif, Joanna® Nova, Malabar™ and Soho®. In addition, the family is available as a suite of OpenType® Pro fonts, providing for the automatic insertion of small caps, ligatures and alternate characters, in addition to offering an extended character set supporting most Central European and many Eastern European languages. The Optima family is available in six weights, from roman to extra black, each with an italic counterpart.

Optima display font