Just like typography is the key to excellent web design, so is the font the key to excellent typography. Google fonts came strong with its rich resources and quickly became the number one choice of web designers and developers.
@font-face font-family: 'Raleway'; font-style: normal; font-weight: 400; src: url(https://fonts.gstatic.com/s/raleway/v18/1Ptxg8zYSSKggPN4iEgvnHyvveLxVvaorCIPrQ. Making the web more beautiful, fast, and open through great typography. Explore Raleway designed by Matt McInerney, Pablo Impallari, Rodrigo Fuenzalida at Adobe Fonts. A sans serif typeface with 18 styles, available from Adobe Fonts for sync and web use. Adobe Fonts is the easiest way to bring great type into your workflow, wherever you are. A sans serif typeface with 18 styles, available from Adobe Fonts for sync. Download the Raleway font by Matt McInerney. The Raleway font has been downloaded 921,988 times. Google creates friendly and engaging interfaces with its own aesthetically pleasing typography, thanks to the fonts like Google Sans and Product Sans. Google Sans is a font that can only used by Google. Google Sans is very similar to Poppins and Montserrat, which are both available via Google fonts. Above are the 20 best Google fonts.
Google fonts offer both aesthetics and functionality and are available for both personal and commercial use. Their selection is available for both web typography andmobile typography.
In addition to the thousands of other sites that use the service, Google itself uses these fonts on their own platform. Google Fonts has also improved its interface and download system to increase accessibility.
The service decreases the cognitive cost on the user by providing useful information about each font. To narrow down the range, this article introduces 20 of the best Google fonts that you can easily apply to your next project.
To make the whole passage more clear, it has been divided into 3 main parts:
- 20 best Google web fonts recommendations
- How to use Google fonts
- What font does Google use
20 best Google web fonts recommendations
1. Dosis
Designer: Impallari Type
Dosis is a rounded sans-serif type with superb charm. The Extra Light style, useful only at size 36pt and up, and the Extended Latin character set which includes many alternative characters, can be widely used in art design and advertising, including posters, PPT files, film, and television production.
It is featured on more than 860,000 websites. Popular Pairings with Dosis are Roboto, Open Sans, Lato, Oswald and Raleway.
2. Roboto
Designer: Christian Robertson
Designed entirely by Google's interface designer Robertson within the Google system, Roboto is the sans-serif font family for the Android operating system, Chrome OS and Google’s Material Design system. This is the font that Google uses.
It’s extremely popular and is featured in more than 24,000,000 websites for its aesthetics and functionality. Roboto’s popular pairings are Open Sans, Lato, Montserrat, Regular, Raleway and Oswald.
3. EB Garamond
Designer: Georg Duffner
EB Garamond is an open Garamond font with retro, classical qualities. Many big companies have versions of Garamond. Apple has the system Garamond while Adobe has Adobe Garamond Pro.
Popular Pairings with EB Garamond are Roboto, Lobster, Montserrat, Lato, Anton. Leap frog game for kids. More than 2,200,000 websites use EB Garamond in typography.
4. Poppins
Designer: Indian Type Foundry
Popins is a geometric sans-serif font. It is very attractive and can be widely used in business card design, news media, posters, PPT files, film, television production and content display.
Poppins is featured in more than 4,000,000 websites. Popins’s popular pairings are Roboto, Raleway, Oswald, Playfair Display and Lato.
5. Lora
Designer: Cyreal
Lora is a well-balanced contemporary serif font with roots in calligraphy. It's been optimised for the screen but works equally well in print. The moderate contrast is well suited for body text. It is ranked in the top 20 in Google fonts.
You should however, be careful when using it, because if the contrast ratio is too high, it may not be suitable for retina screen displays.
You can use Open Sans, Lato, Montserrat, Roboto with Lora. Lora is now featured in more than 1,600,000 websites.
6. Alegreya
Designer: Huerta Tipográfica
Alegreya is a typeface originally intended for literature. Among its crowning characteristics, it conveys a dynamic and varied rhythm which facilitates the reading of long texts. It was chosen as one of 53 'Fonts of the Decade' and one of the top 14 text type systems. It was also selected in the 2nd Bienal Iberoamericana de Diseño, the competition held in Madrid in 2010.
Alegreya is featured in more than 340,000 websites and the popular Pairings are Alegreya are Roboto, Lato, Lora, Playfair Display, Montserrat.
7. Libre Baskerville
Designer: Impallari Type
Baskerville is not a web-safe font, but Libre Baskerville is a great alternative. This web font is optimized for body text of around 16px. It has a taller x-height, wider counters and a little less contrast, which makes it work well for on-screen reading.
Libre Baskerville is featured in more than 3,100,000 websites and its popular pairings are Montserrat, Roboto, Lato, Raleway and Playfair Display.
8. Rufina
Designer: Martin Sommaruga
Rufina is the perfect font for magazine-related or fashion websites. It's very elegant with noble and charming tones of Paris and Milan. Actually, due to its high contrast, it is not very friendly for reading, and you may generally perfer to use it for a title or headline.
Rufina is featured in more than 36,000 websites. You can use it with Roboto, Open Sans, Montserrat, Lato and Raleway.
9. Playfair Display
Designer: Claus Eggers Sørensen
As one of Microsoft's web core fonts, Playfair Display is perfect for title design. It features rough, bold and extra-thick strokes perfect for use when spacing is tight.
Popular pairings are Roboto, Lato, Montserrat, Raleway and Oswald. Playfair Display is featured in more than 4,500,000 websites.
10. Lato
Deisnger: Łukasz Dziedzic
Lato is a sans serif typeface family. The semi-rounded details of the letters gives Lato a feeling of warmth, while the strong structure provides stability and seriousness. “Male and female, serious but friendly. With the feeling of the Summer,” says the designer Łukasz.
11. Work Sans
Deisnger: Wei Huang
Work Sans is a typeface family that is optimized for on-screen text usage at medium-sizes (14px-48px) and can also be used in print design.
12. Rubik
Designer: Cyreal
Rubik is a sans serif font family with slightly rounded corners designed by Philipp Hubert and Sebastian Fischer.
13. Libre Franklin
Designer: Impallari Type
Libre Franklin is frequently used in the USA. It is an interpretation and expansion of the 1912 Morris Fuller Benton classic.
14. Rakkas
Desigenr: Zeynep Akay
Rakkas is single-weight display typeface that supports Arabic and Latin scripts.
15. Fjalla One
Designer: Sorkin Type
Fjalla One is a medium contrast display sans serif.
16. Oswald
Desinger: Vernon Adams
Oswald is better at fitting the pixel grid of standard digital screens.
17. Ubuntu
Desinger: Dalton Maag
The Ubuntu Font Family is a set of matching new libre/open fonts developed in 2010-2011.
18. Open Sans
Designer: Steve Matteson
Open Sans is a humanist sans serif typeface optimized for print, web, and mobile interfaces. It has excellent legibility characteristics in its letterforms.
19. PT Sans
Desinger: ParaType
PT Sans is based on Russian sans serif types and gives the people of Russia the ability to read and write in their native languages.
20. Rokkitt
Designer: Vernon Adams
Rokkitt is used as a display font in headings and headlines, though it can also be used as an alternative to sans serif designs at certain text sizes.
How to use Google font?
Google has improved the facility in implementing its fonts in your device. You can just follow the guide that Google provides to Get Started with the Google Fonts API.
What font does google use?
Google creates friendly and engaging interfaces with its own aesthetically pleasing typography, thanks to the fonts like Google Sans and Product Sans. Google Sans is a font that can only used by Google. Google Sans is very similar to Poppins and Montserrat, which are both available via Google fonts.
Above are the 20 best Google fonts. The full Google font list is way longer, however, these are just some of the high-quality Google web fonts that might interest you. If you have your own recommendations, please let us know.
Are you ready to update your WordPress website, but you’re struggling with the decision which font to choose? There are just so many. How are you supposed to know which are the best Google Fonts to choose for your site? Especially, since the choice of fonts has real-life consequences for the success of your website.
If all else fails, sometimes the best solution is to start with the most popular choices. That’s what we will do here. In this post we will list and discuss the most-used Google Fonts. You will also find a number of tips on how to best incorporate them into your WordPress website.
In the end, we want you to have a better idea about what are some of the most popular fonts out there, why people love them and how they can help your site look better.
Here are 17 of the Most Popular Google Fonts (in 2019)
Alright, in the list below you find examples for some of the most popular fonts the Google library has to offer. You will also learn the number of styles they come in and which other typefaces they go well with.
1. Roboto
- Sans Serif
- 12 Styles
Rockin’ Roboto is a star, reveling in being the most popular font with a record number of almost 60 billion uses. It’s most popular in the US but boasts high usage from Japan to Brazil. Roboto was made specifically to be the best of both worlds with strong, clean lines, yet gentle and friendly curves. Google suggests Open Sans, Lato, Montserrat, Raleway, and Oswald as popular pairings for Roboto.
2. Open Sans
- Sans Serif
- 10 Styles
Outgoing Open Sans is here for readability. It’s a neutral font, a font that wants to be everyone’s friend with accessibility both on mobile platforms and print. Open Sans likes being liked with almost 30 billion uses in the US, France and Russia. Its popular pairings are Roboto, Lato, Oswald, Raleway, and Montserrat.
3. Lato
- Sans Serif
- 10 Styles
Lively Lato is a no-funny-business kind of font with no time for serifs — it has a job to do. Its corners are precise, clean and sharp, which makes a professional statement for its almost 10 billion users from the US to Brazil. Its Google pairings are Roboto, Open Sans, Oswald, Raleway, and Source Sans Pro.
4. Monserrat
- Sans Serif
- 18 Styles
Memorable Monserrat is interested in staying unique like its namesake neighborhood in Buenos Aires, Argentina. It’s professional, but not for the sake of being rigid — it likes to be approachable for its over 5 billion users from the US to France and Brazil. Popular combinations with this font are Raleway, Open Sans, Roboto, Oswald, and Lato.
5. Roboto Condensed
- Sans Serif
- 6 Styles
Returning Roboto, this time in its “Condensed” form. The Roboto font family is a large one and this is the thinner sibling to our earlier example. It has been designed for those who need to conserve space and make the most of the room they have on their website. Over 4 billion people use this version and it is most popular in the USA and Russia. Popular pairings are Open Sans, Lato, Oswald, Montserrat, and regular Roboto.
6. Source Sans Pro
- Sans Serif
- 12 Styles
Superb Source Sans Pro is a go-getter and takes its job seriously. Adobe developed it to work well for user interfaces and Source Sans Pro is the font for the task — almost 4 billion people use it in the US and France. Its goes well with Open Sans, Roboto, Lato, Oswald, and Raleway.
7. Oswald
- Sans Serif
- 6 Styles
Ornate Oswald is proper and enjoys fitting into the pixel grid of standard digital screens. Oswald likes things a certain way as it is used freely across internet platforms by almost 4 billion people, especially in the USA and France. It’s most often paired up with our regularly appearing Open Sans, Roboto, Lato, Montserrat, and Raleway.
8. Raleway
- Sans Serif
- 18 Styles
Refined Raleway is ready to paint the town and lives in an art deco state of mind. Raleway brings an elegant, yet bold presence to any website. It was originally intended to only be a heading with one style, where it now boasts 18 styles and almost 3 billion people who use it. It regularly shows up together with Montserrat, Open Sans, Roboto, Lato, and Oswald.
9. Slabo 27px/13px
- Serif
- 2 Styles
Specialized Slabo 27px/13px is most comfortable in technical atmospheres like a report printed off in a science lab. Although it has serifs, it still maintains a thinner and efficient look and over 2 billion people use it in the US, Indonesia, India and Brazil. Popular pairings are Roboto, Lato, Open Sans, Montserrat and Oswald.
10. PT Sans
- Sans Serif
- 4 Styles
Private PT Sans is an introvert turned extrovert. It was first developed for the “Public Types of Russian Federation” project to help the people of Russia read and write in their native languages. By now, people use it across the world, although it continues to be most popular in Russia with under 2 billion uses. However, users in Turkey and the US also love it. Open Sans, Roboto, Lato, Raleway, and PT Serif all make great companions to this font.
11. Merriweather
- Serif
- 8 Styles
Merry Merriweather is an open book with an easy-to-read style for every screen. It’s a font for the people with interestingly slight diagonals, open, rounded forms, and strong serifs. Under 2 billion people use it mostly in the US, but also Italy and Brazil. Its popular pairings are Open Sans, Montserrat, Oswald, Lato, and Roboto.
12. Roboto Slab
- Serif
- 4 Styles
Relaxed Roboto Slab is the cool cousin to the regular Roboto, bringing with it a sense of flair. It separates itself from regular Roboto with its unique style and doesn’t care for saving space as much as Roboto Condensed because it’s too focused on expressing itself. Under 2 billion people use Roboto Slab in the US, Russia, Italy and Brazil and it goes well with regular Roboto, Open Sans, Monserrat, Lato, and Raleway.
13. Noto Sans/Serif
- Serif or Sans Serif
- 4 Styles
Neighborly Noto Sans is an international kind of font — it enjoys partaking in different cultures as it was meant to be compatible with multiple languages. Over 1.5 billion people use it and they are mostly located in the US and Brazil. Noto Sans likes to cozy up with Noto Serif, Open Sans, Inconsolata, Roboto, and Source Sans Pro.
14. Open Sans Condensed
- Sans Serif
- 3 Styles
Optimal Open Sans Condensed isn’t an envious font, but it felt it was missing out when Roboto Condensed made its debut. Open Sans Condensed is another way to conserve space and to get your message across a little more efficiently than regular Open Sans. Under 1.5 billion people use it in multiple places like the US, Russia, the UK, Italy and France. Popular pairings include regular Open Sans, Roboto, Oswald, Josefin Slab, and Amatic SC.
15. Ubuntu
- Sans Serif
- 8 Styles
Unforgettable Ubuntu is an equal opportunities kind of font. It holds a philosophy similar to Noto Sans by believing that all languages should be able to utilize it. Ubuntu boasts usage by over 1 billion people in multiple countries, such as the US, Russia, Italy, France, Spain and Brazil. It likes to appear with Open Sans, Roboto, Lato, Oswald, and Raleway.
16. Poppins
- Sans Serif
- 18 Styles
Peppy Poppins brings life to geometric patterns and combines order with fun. Its favorite shape is the circle as it’s used to smooth out edges and corners to add a gentleness to its organization. Over 1 billion people use it, mostly in the US and France, where they like to include it with Roboto, Open Sans, Raleway, Oswald, and Playfair Display.
17. Playfair Display
- Serif
- 6 Styles
Professional Playfair Display stands firm with its broad serif while still pairing soft, rounded edges for approachability. This looks great in print and has a strong magazine vibe to it. Just over a billion people use it, most often in the US, France, Italy and Spain. Roboto, Open Sans, Lato, Montserrat, and Raleway can most often be seen together with Playfair Display.
Best Practices for Implementing Google Fonts in WordPress
Now that you’ve seen a complete list of fonts and have an idea of what each looks like, you can choose one that you think complements your style the most. However, after you have picked a font, are you finished? Not quite. You’ll have to make sure that the typeface you chose is being utilized to the fullest.
So, where do you begin? We’ve listed some recommended next steps below to help you optimize the way you use fonts on your WordPress website.
1. Choose a Font that Fits Your Site
Raleway has an art deco feel, Merriweather possesses lightness, and Playfair Display boasts a magazine/print vibe. Ask yourself what style your brand embodies and then choose the font that reflects that.
2. Form a Creative Structure
When choosing one the above fonts, decide which you want for your headings, your body text and your subtitles. Pick fonts that complement one another. Larger fonts that are bold, italic, etc., catch the eye and are strongest as headings.
3. Limit Your Font Styles
As you can see, some of these fonts have up to 18 styles. However, just because you have that many options, it doesn’t mean you need to use them all. Generally, it’s a good rule of thumb to only use three — regular, bold and italic. Too much and it could end up slowing down your site. When selecting fonts from Google, you can pick which styles you want to include so that you avoid downloading too many and impairing your website performance.
4. Keep Readability in Mind
Download Free Raleway Font
The World Health Organization concluded that there are roughly 1.3 billion people in the world living with a visual impairment. Many of them are on the web and part of accessibility is making sure your site is also easily usable for them. However, even those that don’t belong to this group prefer websites that are not hard on the eyes.
For that reason, when displaying fonts on your site, readability is an important factor. For example, choosing neon colors in Comic Sans is a poor choice. So, making sure that your font is pleasing to read will help your site be more friendly for all your users. One of the most important things here is contrast, which you can check with this tool.
Aside from that, it’s always a good idea improve your site’s accessibility.
5. If You Have a Unique Font, Host Locally
You can host a font locally on your server to try and improve performance. If it’s a Google font, that most likely not necessary as Google’s servers usually respond really fast. However, there are other reasons to locate your font files on your server, especially the new GDPR rules. In addition to that, if you use a unique font that isn’t provided by Google, it’s recommended to host it locally on your server to increase performance. This plugin is a great solution for both cases.
What Are the Best Google Fonts for Your WordPress Site?
Raleway Light Font
Finding the right font for your website is not always easy. There are so many fonts out there, so finding one that fits your brand can be a challenge. However, starting with the most popular fonts out there can be a good start. After all, they are popular for a reason.
Download Raleway Font Family
The above post gives you a rundown on the best Google fonts according to the masses. It also tells you important details such as the number of available styles and which other fonts they pair well with, so you can hit the ground running.
Once you have made your choice, follow our detailed tutorial to get the typeface onto your WordPress site. If you are thinking about hosting it on your own server, you can use the plugin mentioned above to do so. After that, all that’s left is to tell us which font you chose and why. We’d love to hear from you.
Which do you think are the best Google Fonts and and why? Let us know in the comments section below.