From Jim and Pam to Kermit and Miss Piggy, many of the most iconic pairings in history balance each other perfectly, with both partners complementing the other’s strengths and weaknesses. However, these duos must also share some common characteristics that make them even more compatible.
The same is true of the best font pairings in graphic design. There’s a reason most designers don’t exclusively use one font family for an entire piece. Designs look best with two (or more) fonts paired together to provide balance, create interest, and ultimately deliver the message most effectively. Need help coordinating fonts for your next piece? Check out a few of our favorite font couplings for some inspiration.
Bebas Neue Regular + Roboto Light
Bebas Neue Regular is one of our favorite fonts for titles, headings and accent words. It’s clean and modern while still delivering a strong, bold impact. Roboto Light, on the other hand, is softer, yet still neat enough to serve as a sensible counterpart to Bebas Neue. The contemporary and orderly look of these fonts make them a perfect combination for any professional brand or design piece. Roboto is also a fairly readable font, even for long-form prose, so it’s an ideal choice for any documents with heavier blocks of text.
Barbaro Roman + Akrobat
For more adventurous brands, we love the distinctive and formidable Barbaro Roman serif font. It’s incredibly recognizable with sharp lines and edges, which makes it a great choice for logos or titles. With such a forceful font calling attention to the design, you need a lighter accompanying typeface for sub-headings and body content. Akrobat is a modern, condensed sans serif that can pull its own weight while still balancing out the bold impact of Barbaro Roman. In the past, we’ve seen B2C brands like restaurants and retailers use this font pairing with great success.
Gotham + Libre Baskerville
Gotham is another striking font that demands attention from its audience, thanks to its classic and urban look. It’s been most notably used in Barack Obama’s 2008 presidential campaign, the GQ Magazine logo and Taco Bell’s recent logo refresh, so it comes as no surprise that Gotham has been steadily rising in popularity over the last decade. We recommend using a similarly classic-looking font, such as Libre Baskerville, as its counterpart to anchor the design and add a bit of variation.
Hackney + Glacial Indifference
For more creative or playful designs, we love the combination of Hackney and Glacial Indifference. Hackney looks almost like hand-painted letters with its bold strokes and slight imperfections, adding eye-catching texture to your piece. We recommend Glacial Indifference as a fitting partner, thanks to its geometric, wide, thin letters that stand in contrast to Hackney’s condensed form. However, since both fonts are sans serif and slightly decorative, we recommend reserving this combination for short-form content.
Windsore Script + Handpack Sans
If you’re looking to bring a more artistic look to your next project, we love using the casually elegant Windsore Script typeface. It’s a bolder and more modern take on a classic script font, while still adding subtle sophistication to any design. Handpack Sans is also an organic-looking font, which pairs well with the soft Windsore Script, though its strong lines also provide needed balance and density. Again, this pairing is best suited to headings and sub-headings, because both fonts can be tough to read in long blocks of text.