One Typeface Is Usually Enough

Every new project has a moment where someone opens a font library and starts pairing. A serif for headlines, a geometric sans for body text, maybe a monospace for the odd label because it looks technical. It's enjoyable work, and it produces a mood board that looks great. It also produces a lot of the problems we spend the rest of the project fixing.

Our default is one typeface. It isn't a rule we never break, but it's a starting position that a second family has to argue its way past. Most of the time, it loses the argument.

Why pairing gets overdone

Pairing feels like design. You can see the decision, show it to a client and talk about the contrast between the two. Working within a single family is less visible. The effort goes into weights, sizes, spacing and line length, and none of that makes for an exciting presentation slide.

The trouble is that two typefaces bring two sets of proportions. Their x-heights differ, their spacing differs, and their figures sit differently on the line. Put a heading and a paragraph next to each other and you're constantly adjusting one to sit comfortably with the other. Every new component repeats the negotiation.

What one family can do

A well-made type family with a decent range of weights gives you more contrast than most people expect. A heavy weight at a large size against a regular weight at body size is already a clear hierarchy. Add some letter spacing for small uppercase labels and a lighter weight for secondary text, and you've covered almost everything a typical website needs.

Many families also include features that do the job people reach for a second font to do. Tabular figures line up numbers in tables and prices. Small caps handle labels without shouting. Some include a condensed width or an optical size for headings. Before adding a new typeface, we check what the current one already offers, and it's usually more than we remembered.

The practical gains

One family means fewer font files, which means faster pages. On a site where we're working hard on load times as part of our website design and build, dropping a second family can save a noticeable chunk of weight, plus one less request that might hold up text appearing.

It also makes the system easier to live with. When a client's team adds a new page a year after launch, there's one font to choose from and a small set of sizes. It's very hard to get wrong. With two families, we've seen people swap them around, set body copy in the display face or mix both in a single heading. The site slowly drifts.

Consistency is the quieter benefit. A single family gives a product one voice. Readers don't notice it, but they notice when it's missing, in the same way they'd notice a speaker who keeps changing accents.

When a second typeface earns its place

There are good reasons to add one. A brand with a distinctive display face for its logo and headlines may need a plainer family for long reading. Some products show code, data or reference numbers that need a monospace. Editorial sites sometimes want a serif for articles and a sans for navigation, and that contrast can help readers tell content from interface.

The test we use is simple: can we say, in one sentence, what job the second typeface does that the first can't? If the answer is "it adds personality", that usually means the first typeface was chosen poorly, or that the personality should come from somewhere else, like layout, colour or copy.

How we choose the one

Because one family has to do everything, we choose it carefully. We look at how it performs at small sizes on cheap screens, whether the figures are clear, how many weights it has, and whether its italics are real italics rather than slanted upright letters. We set real content in it, including the awkward bits like long product names, prices and form labels.

Then we build the type styles, usually six to eight of them, and stick to them. Discipline matters more than the font. A great typeface used in fifteen sizes looks worse than an ordinary one used in six.

If your site's type feels busy and you can't work out why, count the families. You might not need as many as you've got. We're happy to take a look if you get in touch.