In graphic design, typography serves two functions. The first is to improve legibility, and the second is to help communicate the meaning, tone, and sentiment of a design piece. 

Aesthetics is yet another role of typography. We are drawn to aesthetically appealing designs that are clean and easy to read. In contrast, we avoid designs that are cluttered, complicated, or require us to strain our eyes. 

As a result, it's important to employ typography successfully in graphic design. But sometimes, having to pay for premium fonts stands in the way. That's why we've curated a list of 8 free Google fonts you can use. 

How to choose the right font?

Before going on the list of top fonts, how can we choose the best fonts for graphic design? Here are a few factors that help:

• Branding: The typeface you choose should reflect the brand values and mission of your organization. 
• Readability: To maintain readability at all sizes, use a typeface that works well in multiple sizes and weights and verify if the typeface you chose is legible on small screens.
• Font family: When selecting a font for your projects, you must consider how large a font family must be in order to match the typographic requirements of your project. For many projects, two weights with italics would suffice. Others, however, may necessitate extra weights to achieve a good visual hierarchy.
• Contrast: If you want to incorporate different typefaces, make sure they have significant contrasting characteristics. For example, some of the best Google font combinations include combining serif with a Sans Serif.  But keep in mind that contrast doesn't mean that both fonts look conflicting. The ideal font combination should create harmony.

At times, you may find a font on a page or a document that easily fits the criteria we just defined above. This is when a font finder would help you add the font to your design. As the name suggests, a font finder will extract the fonts used in a design and find out the type and size of the font so you can include it in your own project effortlessly.

Now, if you’re working with a big team, you would be better served by using an artwork management tool that would allow your whole team to access not only the fonts you’re using in the design, but also refer each version of the design, manage feedback effectively, reduce errors with an online proofing tool, and streamline collaboration throughout the project’s timeline.

Read More: Why Brands Need to Invest in Artwork Management Platforms

Best fonts for designers

The great thing about these fonts is that they all have different characteristics. Some are modern; some are bold. Some are unique and have even made it to movie posters. Let’s jump in. 

1. Roboto 

Roboto is the most popular and downloaded font in Google’s typeface library. Amazingly, it has more than 5 trillion total views.  

It was created by Christian Roberston as Google’s default in-house typeface. 

The font is modest with curves attached to decisive terminals. This simplicity distinguishes it from other variable serif fonts designed for on-screen reading.

2. Open Sans

Open Sans is an open source humanist sans-serif typeface designed by Steve Matteson and released in 2011 by Google. It's based on his previous Droid Sans design for Android mobile devices, but it's a little wider.

The typeface is very legible on screen and at small sizes, thanks to wide apertures on many letters and a huge x-height (tall lower-case letters). It also has a real italic because it belongs to the humanist genre of sans-serif types. 

This font is the second most popular font on Google Fonts as of July 2018, with over four billion visits per day on more than 20 million websites.

3. Poppins

Poppins is a Geometric sans serif typeface that has become a popular design tool for creating websites. 

It's simple, with 18 various font weights ranging from thin to black. Because of the variety of font styles available and the font's open look (as shown in the loops of the "p" and "o" above), this font is ideal for headlines and paragraph material to increase readability and style. It's useful if your personal style is playful, modern, natural, or professional

4. Lato 

 The "Lato" typeface is available in 18 styles and weights, with 3000+ glyphs per style. It's well-known for its rounded edges and inviting warmth to the reader. It's now one of the most popular typefaces on Google Fonts, and it's almost everywhere.

The usage of this typeface on business cards can make the card appear very simple and legible as it delivers the important information to its recipients right away. On promotional materials, the use of this typeface is particularly preferable because the information or phrase must stand out without being distracted.

5. Belleza

Belleza, a free Google Font, is a humanist sans serif font inspired by the fashion world. It has a fresh design that reminds readers of femininity, thanks to its classic proportions, high contrast in its strokes, and distinctive counters. 

Belleza is a Unicode typeface family that covers languages that use the Latin alphabet and its derivatives, with the potential to grow to accommodate more scripts.

6. Federo

Jakob Erbar, the famous pioneer of sans-serif typography, designed the Feder-Grotesk type in 1909. 

In 2011, Olexa Volochay created a display web font named Federo, keeping the type close to the original one.  

After the redesign, details were polished and contrast was somewhat lowered for uniformity. Figures were given consistent dimensions and counters were enlarged to improve legibility.

7. Montserrat

It is a sans serif font with 18 variations and 9 weights and is similar to  Proxima Nova, Gotham, Futura, Arial, and Helvetica. The Q, in particular, has a nice tail, and the J has a fantastic crossbar on the top of the letter, which distinguishes Montserrat.

Montserrat is quite versatile and may be utilized in a variety of contexts, making it one of the best google fonts for logos, websites, the publishing sector, branding, editorial, print, posters, and so on. It is a typeface that can be used almost anywhere due to its geometric nature, simplicity, and large x-height.

8. Playfair

Playfair Display is a serif typeface produced by Danish type designer Claus Eggers Sorensen in 2011. It is a transitional font, although the high-contrast strokes may position it more in the Modern category. 

Typefaces from the mid to late eighteenth century, such as Baskerville, impacted the design. It's great for titles and headlines (especially the lovely italic), but for extensive lengths of body material, the delicate, high-contrast strokes can be difficult to see, especially at smaller sizes.

Conclusion

Typography improves legibility and conveys a design's meaning, tone, and feeling.

It’s also important when it comes to aesthetics. We like clear designs that are easy on the eye and avoid cluttered, complex, or eye-straining designs.

But premium fonts can be costly. So, this list of 8 the best google fonts for designers and considerations on how to choose one should help you in your next project.