Pairing WordPress fonts together is one of the more enjoyable aspects of building your website. With hundreds of WordPress fonts out there, your choice of font pairs allows you to inject a bit of your unique personality into the final product (i.e., your website).
However, given the sizable pool of choices, it’s inevitable that some fonts will pair better than others, and some fonts will even downright clash with each other. That’s why it’s important to choose from a narrowed down list of proven winners.
To help you out, we researched the best WordPress fonts available in 2024. These fonts pair better than milk and cookies… according to science! In addition, we included a shortlist of some WordPress font examples from some beautifully-designed sites. This way you can choose the ones that you think will work best for you.
But first… why should you even care?
📚 Table of contents:
- Why your font choice matters
- The psychology of typeface
- WordPress fonts that pair well
- How to change fonts in a WordPress theme
1. Why your font choice matters 💡
The font you choose might seem totally unimportant at first glance. As long as it’s legible, who cares what font type you use, right?
Well, typeface actually matters. Different font types have different levels of readability, different personality and style, and convey very different messages to your readers.
We’ll get more into what message certain fonts present in the next two sections, but it boils down to this:
People will judge your site’s feel and trustworthiness based on your font choice. So choose well!
2. The psychology of typeface 🧠
While it’s not an exact science, there is a psychology behind your font choice. Different typefaces put people into different moods.
While I could write a full paper on the different studies that have been done around this, instead I’ll just show you an infographic made by Ted Hunt for CrazyEgg.
As you can see, there are five major categories of font types:
- Serif (The traditional typeface – not good for reading on the web, better for headings than body copy)
- Sans Serif (A clean, modern font – high readability, great for body copy, the most popular choice for WordPress sites)
- Modern (A progressive, stylish font – good readability, can be used for body text or headings)
- Display (The personality choice – alright readability, better for headers than as the main font)
- Script (The fancy font – lowest readability, please don’t use this in your body, and use sparingly for headings, better for logos)
So ask yourself:
What kind of personality does your brand have? What do you want people to feel when they visit your site – clean and modern, cheeky and edgy, fancy, traditional, or unique?
Pick the fonts that best pair with that.
3. WordPress fonts that pair well 🥛🍪
If you can’t decide what fonts to use, don’t worry – I totally understand. Choosing the right font combination can be stressful. That’s why I made this section – to give you WordPress fonts examples from beautifully designed sites.
In other words, to remove the guesswork, so you can make your site look amazing as quickly as possible.
Think of this as a sort of WordPress font list. I’ll give you one example of each font family.
- Serif: Wall Street Journal
- Sans-serif: L’Étude
- Modern: helloMuller
- Script: Contrast Web
- Display: WebLounge
Let’s get right to it!
Serif: The Wall Street Journal
The Wall Street Journal uses a very traditional type. Their logo uses Escrow, a serif type font. However, their body still uses sans-serif, which you’ll find on almost every website today because of it’s extremely high readability.
Fonts used: Escrow, Whitney SSm, Chronicle Display, Chronicle SSm
Sans-serif: L’Étude
Pan-continental creative studio, L’Étude keeps things simple with one sans-serif font. In this case, it’s Process Type Foundry’s Indivisible. However, there are many other sites that use sans-serif fonts, and there are so many choices for this kind of typeface. It’s quite versatile.
Fonts used: Indivisible
Modern: helloMuller
The helloMuller design studio also sticks with simplicity, going for the Söhne typeface. This takes inspiration from Helvetica and Akzidenz-Grotesk. The latter’s influence on this modern sans-serif font is clear. Both the body copy and headings look gorgeous and cool too. We encourage you to check out helloMuller’s projects: X-Men, Skyrim, and more!
Fonts used: Söhne
Script: Contrast Web
You won’t find many examples of script fonts being used for web text, but development studio Contrast Web is an exception to this rule! The reason being, is that sites prefer to choose readability over the fancy aesthetics provided by scripts. In Contrast Web’s case, the Antenna font is a more “diplomatic” choice, but note their use of Voyage to highlight specific words. It’s a clever touch, and an excellent use of script fonts.
Fonts used: Antenna, Gotham, Voyage
Display: WebLounge
Web Lounge uses a combination of traditional sans font, elegant script font, and sans serif fonts. They actually won a spot on Awwwards 20 best web font choices.
Fonts used: Museo Sans, Playfair Display
💡 Pro Tip: See a font you like on a certain site? Use the WhatFont Chrome extension to quickly see what fonts they’re using!
4. How to change fonts in a WordPress theme ↔️
You can change fonts across your entire theme, or in individual WordPress posts and pages. It’s not very difficult, especially if you’re using a good theme.
We’ve already written an extensive guide on how to change your WordPress typography. So go check it out if you need help updating your fonts.
(It gives you three options – the theme settings, with a plugin, or with code. Whichever is easiest for you!)
Final thoughts on WordPress fonts 🏁
There are so many friggin’ choices when it comes to WordPress fonts. Don’t freak out and don’t succumb to analysis paralysis. It all boils down to a simple three-step process:
- Decide what emotions you want your site and your brand to convey
- Pick a font from the family that conveys that emotion (more on that in the infographic)
- Find a good sans serif font for your main body text that pairs well with your heading font
With all the examples and information we gave you here, you should have no problem choosing an awesome font.
👉 Tired of your current WordPress theme and dying for a fresh look? Check out our library of over 30+ free and premium WordPress themes!
Which WordPress fonts do you think make a good pairing, and what does your site use? Let us know in the comments section below!
Hello Bill. What font does this post use?
Hey, Tope! Sorry for the late reply. This post uses “PT Serif”. 🙂
Interesting post, tks!
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