Top 100 Best Fonts for Graphic Designers (2021)

Jacob Cass
5 min readJun 4, 2021
Top 100 Fonts of All Time

What are the most popular & best fonts that professional graphic designers use?

Based on a variety of factors Sales, Historical Value/Meaning, Aesthetic Qualitiesthese are the top 100 best fonts of all time, perfect for professional graphic designers!

We’ve compiled an ultimate list of 100+ essential fonts for designers and shown the top 10 fonts in each category of type including: sans-serif, serif, slab serif, display, vintage, script, luxury and more.

The Best Fonts For Graphic Designers 2021

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Please note as an MyFonts & DesignCuts Associate I earn from qualifying purchases, at no extra cost to you.

Top 100 Best Fonts For Graphic Designers (Free & Paid)

10 Best Sans Serif Fonts

  1. Brandon Grotesque
  2. FF DIN®
  3. Proxima Nova
  4. Gilroy™
  5. Mont™
  6. Avenir Next®
  7. Cera Pro™
  8. Panton
  9. TT Commons
  10. Museo Sans™
  11. Helvetica® Now

View Best Sans Serif Fonts

10 Best Free Sans Serif Fonts

  1. Montserrat
  2. Nexa (Light & Bold only) Full family here
  3. Bebas Neue
  4. Exo 2
  5. Raleway
  6. Roboto
  7. Open Sans
  8. Titillium Web
  9. Ubuntu
  10. Lato

View Best Free Sans Serif Fonts

10 Best Serif Fonts

  1. Hermann
  2. Recoleta
  3. Blacker
  4. ITC Lubalin Graph
  5. Linotype Didot
  6. Begum
  7. ITC Caslon №224
  8. Sabon
  9. Bookmania
  10. Gabriela Stencil

View Best Serif Fonts

10 Best Slab Serif Fonts

  1. Rockwell — $35
  2. Clarendon — $29
  3. Bondie — Condensed Slab Serif Font — $15
  4. Museo Slab — $16
  5. Knox Serif Typeface — $17
  6. Vodka Display Font Pack — $35
  7. American Oak 4 Font Set — $19
  8. Orgon Slab — $40
  9. Servus Slab — $29
  10. Lunchbox Slab Font Family — $25
  11. Leophard Font Family — $12
  12. Cabrito — $24

View Best Slab Serif Fonts

10 Best Display Fonts

  1. Brandon Grotesque — $40
  2. Bourton — $10
  3. Spock — $19
  4. Sofa Serif — 25 Hand Drawn Display Fonts — $24
  5. Highbinder Display Font — $15
  6. Gilroy — $25
  7. Requiem Display Font — $12
  8. Sugar Boats Display Font — $15
  9. Dorris — $20
  10. Prizefighter Art Deco Display Font — $15

View Best Display Fonts

10 Best Script Fonts

  1. Bourton — $5
  2. Rhapson Script Font — $8
  3. Black Diamond — $16
  4. Groenly Script — $18
  5. The Honest Designers Script — $24
  6. Quickbrush — $29
  7. Northwell — $6
  8. Greenlight Script — $15
  9. Seventies — $18
  10. Corner Deli — $45

View Best Script Fonts

10 Best Luxury Fonts

  1. Coldiac — Luxury Serif Font — $19
  2. Nord, Rinstonia, Sola Vesta, Da Vinci, Miyake ($16.50)
  3. Konseric | Luxury Serif Font — $17
  4. Bordemile — Luxury Script — $18
  5. American Favorite — Luxury Font Duo — $19
  6. Aston Script Pro — $12
  7. Desirable Calligraphy — $23
  8. Yuanita — $12
  9. The Secret: Luxury Calligraphy Script — $16
  10. Belgiana Script — $5
  11. Stay Classy Font Duo — $17

View Best Luxury Fonts

10 Best Vintage Fonts

  1. Collectors Vintage Font Bundle (8 font families) — $97
  2. Bilcase Vintage Display Font Family — $39
  3. Hollywood Vintage Font — $12
  4. Knucklehead Font Family — $40
  5. Vintage Queens — $16
  6. Braton Composer — $10
  7. The Aviator Font Collection — $15
  8. Victorian Fonts Collection — $14
  9. Bignord Vintage — $16
  10. Melvis — Vintage Font Family — $19

View Best Vintage Fonts

10 Best Handwritten Fonts

  1. Amithen Brush Font
  2. Bird House Script
  3. Clarkson Script
  4. The Historia
  5. Watch
  6. Carosello
  7. Sinisuka
  8. Buffalo
  9. Venture — Handmade Font Script
  10. Crushine Wet Brush

View Best Handwritten Fonts

10 Best Signature Fonts

  1. Elliana Samantha
  2. Hertine
  3. Holimoun
  4. Signerica
  5. Amillia Signature
  6. Sighnora
  7. Portraits
  8. Mayestica
  9. Brigham
  10. Autography

10 Best Variable Fonts

  1. Inter
  2. Epilogue
  3. Jost
  4. Work Sans
  5. Anybody
  6. Acumin
  7. Raleway
  8. Heebo
  9. Libre Franklin
  10. Mulish

15 Best Font Combinations

  1. Playfair Display with Source Sans Pro
  2. Merriweather with Oswald
  3. Montserrat with Merriweather
  4. Raleway with Lato
  5. Elsie with Roboto
  6. Dancing Script with Josefin Sans
  7. Abril Fatface with Roboto
  8. Corben with Nobile
  9. Spirax with Open Sans
  10. Wendy One with Lato
  11. Baloo with Montserrat
  12. Cherry Cream Soda with Raleway
  13. Amaranth with Open Sans
  14. Palanquin with Roboto
  15. Sansita with Open Sans

View Best Font Combinations

Top 100 Best Fonts of All Time

To say the least, ranking fonts is an obviously hard task… how does one measure aesthetic quality, the benefit of an item, its value to humanity and so fourth?

Well, in this particular German publication (now offline), the judges ranked the fonts by their objective and various other weighted measurements:

  • FontShop Sales Figures: 40%
  • Historical Value/Meaning: 30%
  • Aesthetic Qualities: 30%

It is also worth noting that this evaluation consisted exclusively of licensed or commercial fonts only. Free fonts or operating system fonts were not considered, nor were fonts integral to standard software (i.e. Arial, Verdana, etc.).

Font variations, which over the centuries have been individually interpreted by various Foundries, were uniquely evaluated as a class and the best variant was entered into the main judging process.

Below is a preview of the top 33 fonts and beneath this image you can find the full list of the 100 best fonts. You can also view a pretty table version of these fonts here.

Top 33 Fonts of all Time

Below you will find the full list of the best 100 fonts along with the designer & the year in which they were designed.

1. Helvetica [1957 — Max Miedinger]

2. Garamond [1530 — Claude Garamond]

3. Frutiger [1977 — Adrian Frutiger]

4. Bodoni [1790 — Giambattista Bodoni]

5. Futura [1927 — Paul Renner]

6. Times [1931 — Stanley Morison]

7. Akzidenz Grotesk [1966 — G nter Gerhard Lange]

8. Officina [1990 — Erik Spiekermann]

9. Gill Sans [1930 — Eric Gill]

10. Univers [1954 — Adrian Frutiger]

11. Optima [1954 — Hermann Zapf]

12. Franklin Gothic [1903 — Morris Fuller Benton]

… Continue reading the rest of this story at JUST Creative.

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Jacob Cass

Helping brands grow & get results with strategic branding & distinctive design. Founder of agency, JUSTCreative.com — Clients: Nike, Disney. TEDx speaker. Dad.