I am creating a new website today. I begin in Adobe XD with a style master sheet, and I have all of my styles, colors, font choices, buttons, etc. In this single page. I look at the general palette of everything that is thrown into a page in once glance.
I always forget my favorites, but I am going to keep this list online to remind myself of these, say, 5 favorites, and I think I will refer back to this so I don’t have to trudge through articles that have one font per page and are a cesspool of Google ads (note to self, this will be a great page to throw a couple Google ads to watch how the do…)
Here are my FIVE favorite Google Fonts and the corresponding nerdy reasons.
- Solway – I once composed a rather large XD for a government organization website that is very consumer-facing. It had TONS of information on it, and Solway was a easy-to-read humanist serif face that accommodated plenty of text, remained readable at small sizes, and had a nice, low X-height that was easy on researching eyes. The site headlines were later replaced with the space hog Montserrat because Montserrat was trendy and body copy with Open Sans because Open Sans was sold to the client for its accessibility. I maintain that Open Sans is boring and harder to read through quickly. Harumph.

2. Mitr – This is borderline cuddly, but it has a good family-business flavor. It balances out well with serif typefaces, and I think this will work in a duo where the client is looking for a “but we’re not a stuffy company”. If you call them on it with Mitr as your main typeface, maybe you can just switch it with its serif counterpart and you’ll have just the right flavor. Cuddly body copy that is still pretty readable with more elegant and corporate headlines.

3. Cabin – I enjoy this typeface because it has some Eric Gill signature style (think London Subway). The lowercase a and the s are quirky. And – it performs well in all caps – the M has a very solid spread and the Q is not exceptionally awkward and baseline-defying. The numeral set is modern and works well in a site that contains heavy numerical data in tables, lists, etc.

4. Work Sans – This typeface can hold up an entire site on its own with the 18 styles available. The thins can give chic succinct headlines impact, and the burly BLACK 900 can mask images and scenes when executed right. I will admit that the text is pretty airy as a default, so I will avoid it on paragraph-heavy sites, or select a close sans serif, to accompany it as the headline font, that is tighter in letterspacing.

5. Lora – Endearing, yet professional. Lora is a serif that has g, r, and a with teardrop terminals that make it cozy enough for me to call it humanist. Good for a conservative site, or a side show for a highly stylized Title font choice.

Hopefully you enjoyed agreeing or disagreeing with my choices – I’d say leave a comment, but I a currently sifting through all of the wire transfer inheritances and romantic improvement pharmaceutical offers that have been coming in to my form. My socials are on the home page though.
<3
Jenny
