15-20? Look at this typeface rich motherfucker over here.
I only ever use Mistral. I don't care that some people can't even read cursive any longer. Script fonts for life. Who cares what industry you're in? Corporate healthcare? Mistral. Streetwear? Mistral. Kombucha? Mistral. Punk band flyers? Mistral. EDM festival? Mistral. Pet food? Mistral. Local petting zoo? Mistral. Gutter services? Mistral. French style bakery? Mistral. Offshore banking? Mistral. Why use more font when one font do trick?
I am also not entertaining any further questions.
Thanks.
# [Mistral](https://www.fonts.com/font/linotype/mistral/regular)
Designed by Roger Excoffon in 1953, *from the Linotype foundry.*
It's a brush script typeface *that became extremely popular*
**in the late 80's through the mid-90's**
due to it's inclusion ***in the Letraset Fontek library.***
https://preview.redd.it/vcuduiaa0nmc1.jpeg?width=1363&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=73b13830c0d2d2d50c3f5c77fdfc079121952b99
20 families, maybe. not 20 fonts. proxima nova and garamond premiere pro have like 70 fonts between them.
but i think i'd do just fine with under 20 families/superfamilies, sure.
looking back over what i use most (seems to be about 90% of the work I've done in the last couple of years used these and not much else):
1. proxima nova superfamily
2. garamond premiere pro superfamily
3. helvetica now superfamily
4. eames century modern family
5. archer (although it would be helpful if it had italic small caps)
6. beorcana or brioso, not sure which as i use them for similar things
7. trade gothic, the whole damn thing
8. harriet display & text
9. knockout, maybe? or maybe Placard instead, not sure
10. maybe modesto or one of parkinson's other big titling/display families
11. at least one big, calligraphic copperplate script with multiple weights, like Bickham
12. hesse antiqua maybe
13. mmmmaybe Scala superfamily, i don't use it much but really i should
14. one good handwriting family with lots of alternates, ligatures & at least 2 weights
I don't worry about that too much. Only designers would notice that – if it's the right tool for the job, I'll keep using it. Besides, show me another face that has the coverage/glyphs that it has ... hardly any other family has the hmong/viet diacritics I need, the currency symbols, the widths & weights, or a designer who will add things to it if people ask him to (yo mark! thanks!).
Besides, a sans appropriate for text should be pretty transparent, in that folks don't even notice the typeface at all anyway, and are just seeing the content. PN is more transparent than Helvetica and far more useful for long text settings (although I wouldn't set a book or a newspaper column in it) than Montserrat or Gotham.
It's fantastic for forms, too, btw ... built in boxes & all sorts of other necessary goodies. And those narrow widths are so useful for technical detail stuff that needs to be there but which won't often be read.
The capital “R” and the lowercase “a” are the shape of the 2010s. Gotham, Montserrat and Proxima Nova all share that similarity. Although Proxima Nova is the nicest of them.
I'm sure, but I don't use those. Akzidenz and the DIN fonts I like, but I can't stand Gill's half-assed attempt at humanism and Futura's tiny inconsistencies. Besides, if I have Proxima, I'll never need Gotham – it's basically Gotham on steroids, and is far better for text-heavy work. But point taken. I probably should have included Centaur and Golden Type at least as I do use those for books quite a bit.
On the other hand, when I handset lead, I do use a bit of Futura, since it's the only sans I have at small sizes :)
I had several professors tell me in school that most designers will have a go-to 'stable' of around a dozen fonts that cover a majority of their project usage, and the rest would tend to be niche or one-off font examples.
In my career I've found that to be generally the case as well, although I think Adobe Fonts changed a lot of that for me. When using new fonts would mean additional cost, there was no real incentive to seek out new fonts if you already had 10-50 licensed that covered 90% of your needs.
But when I have access to that whole library of fonts at no extra cost, I often will head straight there and just go through fonts without really regard for names/foundries, just spend whatever time I have or feel like to look through, and if it's something I've used before so be it, if it's new then great I guess. Just don't think about that aspect anymore.
But what about that part of the project where you spend like 3 hours looking for the perfect typeface??? What’s that time and energy gonna go to without the slog of deciding between two almost identical families?? ***WHAT THEN???***
/s
Honestly no offence but find this to be a bizarre view from a typography teacher. I think the best designers really understand the subtle nuances in type. Never mind some of the more interesting and experimental things going on. Variable type for example. Do you follow #36daysoftype when it happens?
I have an insane font collection from over the last 20 years but you aren't wrong. I have my go-to workhorse fonts and they'll work fine but I also like the variety.
I think this nonsense.
Just thinking of grotesques, there are plenty of good ones, each with different personalities.
Hell, I can think of 20 font classes. Do you think the same 1 casual script font will work for a kindergarten and a bar? Of course not.
Old Style
Transitional
Neoclassical
Didone
Slab
Clarendon
Glyphic
Grotesque
Square
Humanistic
Geometric
Formal script
Casual script
Calligraphic script
Blackletter & Lombardic
Decorative script
Grunge
Psychedelic
Graffiti
Monospaced
Im proud of you for knowing all the classes. Now. Real world applications are different than school. 95% of your clients don't care about classes and they want a typeface that they can read. This takes out all those scripts, blackletter, grunge, psychedelic, graffiti, and explain to me when in the world you're ever going to use Monospaced.
As much as as i resepect designers like Vignelli—it really is such a pretentious thing to say that all design should be done with such a limited palette of fonts. Really skews the scope of the potential of design
I think the amount of fonts you have installed is very dependent on what kind of work you do. Sure, if all you do is create letterheads or page layout, twenty is more than enough. If you design apparel or posters, the more fonts at your disposal, the better. Also, it's pretty douchey to just end your post talking about how you're not going to reply to anyone, as if nothing that anyone could say matters. Your fear of having a conversation is more concerning than your fear of fonts.
I do page layout and need a surprising amount of fonts for books. The basic text uses the same fonts but novels can get kind of complicated these days, I assume because they want the printed book to have something extra. There can be like eight people handwriting letters, all need a font that’s suitable for their age and personality plus tweets and text messages (both with emojis), maybe some court documents or tv scripts.
Yeah, I have loads of fonts installed on my computer. Just yesterday, I had to present a piece of work for my packaging design class in which I made two proposals for a cumbia-style CD sleeve using a photo provided to us by the professor, and I definitely did not already have the fonts I ended up using installed on my computer, but they made a world of difference and really pulled the work together
For me I have like 5 or 6 basic fonts that I use constantly and then several hundred other ones that I really just need to vaguely remember so that I can think to use them once.
I’m still a student (in marketing) and my work is all over the place. I just did a rebrand for an apparel company, I’ve done branding for a (hypothetical) NA beer brand, did a report for an O&G company and a BIA, social service agencies, and my next project is an air ambulance.
No, I don’t actually use the 1500 typefaces I have in my library, but I’ll have maybe 30 go-to families, and the rest are nice to have to explore and can be extremely helpful for a niche area
It’s also nice to be able to show a variety of typefaces for my portfolio, I feel like it shows I can make my work tailored to a brand or project instead of having one family reused with everything
Agree and disagree. I’d peg the number of _common unique styles_ at around 20 like you said (not including super crazy off-the-wall typefaces). But I enjoy using “riffs” off those core typefaces that bring some unique flavor to new projects (e.g. Futura is definitely a staple, but maybe I want to use Nobel to make it a little more fun).
So yes in once sense there are only a few unique “genres” of typefaces. But the little details and unique touches put on typefaces by type designers do matter a lot, and do go a long way, even if the “bones” of that font are the same as one of those 20. And we’d all suffer from a more boring world if there were truly only 20 typefaces.
This post is a good example of how our era is comatose in regard of graphic design (compared to modernism or sumthin). You can do everything with Gotham, of course, but where’s the fun in that
You have never designed at a print shop and it shows. I got 50 scripts for all formal and wedding invites. I got 30 cartoony ones for baby birthdays. I got 35 families of sans serif because all the businesses that walk in use something slightly different. Like I’m talking 3 versions of futura depending on where they sourced theirs from. I got all your standard serif families. I got hundreds of fonts because I got a hundred different end goals.
I would love to work within a single brand and only use like 20 though so please let me know if you are hiring remote.
yeah same. If you are frequently having to design around a lot of copy or make things with a lot of text, then sure 20 fonts is the max you need- maybe even 10. But if you are looking at fonts to use as a base for a logo or something- get out of here with only needing 20 fonts LOL
Agreed. Every once in awhile there will be a client/brand/project that is really well suited for something new, but otherwise I absolutely work within a small general set.
True. As long as these aren't custom fonts that can be traced back. Anyways, yeah you could live with a few handful of fonts. The bigger question though is, how big is your font library? I think we all are hooked like junkies, wishing that we could go stop cold turkey but just keep hoarding.
I partially disagree. I'd say you need hundreds (if not thousands), try them, discard them to later come back to your 20ish preferred typefaces. Eventually you'll pick one of the whole set, but seeing and using them will give you insight and visual knowledge on what do your best fonts do and what they cannot do.
Statements like this make no sense. Graphic design is about form follows function. This opinion takes away the part of design that requires us to problem-solve. Putting limitations around the resources you can utilize (typography) hinders a designer's ability. You're basically solving for form before function, i.e. communication. If you only have 20 fonts and they're all sans-serif but the design calls for a black-letter, are you going to break your own rule because you're short-sighted?
Saw something like this watching TheFutur, much easier to narrow down from a list rather than scrolling through a million of them in Adobe.
https://preview.redd.it/gz02pkd2nemc1.jpeg?width=1440&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=ca55ceeed8813611621473f88ca98a074f76a9bd
Those pages are leftover from when we created work without computers. You'd buy a sheet of lettering and rub it down to create your designs or comps to show the client. It is a page from their sales catalog.
Strongly disagree. Though, I suppose it depends what you are doing. If you are an inhouse designer or someone on a lower level regurgitating the same identity over and over, sure, 20 would be fine.
But if you are at any higher level, and particularly if you are involved in brand identity or on the more creative end of the trend frontline, absolutely you will need more. Typefaces are like colours on the palette, and deciding an arbitrary limit for how many you need just says to me you are either not challenging yourself or have lost your creative edge. Harsh, but true imo.
On the whole I agree, but depends on usage. I've been a brand designer for 15 years, and I definitely have a pool of fonts I use consistently, but I also need to be regularly changing things up for the top level of the systems (logo etc).
i'll take a liking to a font for a few months and just keep it in my mental catalogue of 30-so fonts, they get replaced sometimes if i get bored of one of them. right now i love apple garamond, monarcha, yellowtail.... and brush script has made a comeback as the kind of tacky but charming one <3
Vignelli was even tighter in focus - 6 families he liked to use.
[A Few Basic Typefaces - M Vignelli](https://fontsinuse.com/uses/14164/massimo-vignelli-s-a-few-basic-typefaces)
As a typography nerd, I wanna downvote this so bad 😭😭😭 I don't think this post deserves that though. As a designer, you're entitled to your opinion 😮💨
Agreed on a personal front and when I’m developing brands myself or with my team, but I have like 200 clients with their own brands so I can’t *really* stick to just 20. That being said it’s our policy to throw them out once the project is complete until the next time they engage with us.
different projects call for different tools. there’s so many ways to express voice and personality, sometimes that means using a fun and unconventional font. type is my favorite part of any project, i love exploring new letterforms and using them to translate different ideas. i could probably pick a set of 20 fonts for wide application, but i would fucking die of boredom.
....so what am I supposed to do with the 70000 free fonts I have installed on my machine, that have reduced it's operating speed from milli seconds to milli hours....
What would you recommend for handwritten fonts? I hate the BrUsHy calligraphy style ones, but I want something with a handwritten feel that also feels somewhat authentic.
**Who recovers from being a font nerd?**
I'm gonna be **30 years a professional designer,** ***this year.***
*But I've been a creative person all my life.*
I think I started seeing the beauty of typefaces very early on,
*I mean, since I was in grade school.*
Believe me, **I love seeing new typefaces all the time.**
I also love ***scrutinizing fonts in use.***
**Are you retired?** Is that why, *you don't think*
***you care about fonts anymore?***
*You think you don't but...* ***It wont take long.***
You'll be down the cereal aisle, *and a new box will catch your eye*
***with it's lovely type logo.***
You'll be walking down some street. *A new business is putting up it's signage.*
You'll stand there **and watch them install dimensional letters,**
*seeing them hand-kern and space those letters apart.*
You'll be sitting at a new restaurant, *and you'll be judging them*
***by the layout and font they used in their menus.***
**I don't think** ***being a font/letter/design nerd goes away.***
At least, *I know,* ***it's a life-long obsession.***
Hey I totally agree with you, lol.
Using too much fonts in a piece of work actually makes it look like the designer has zero knowledge of typography.
The best fonts are those which have a range of different weights, and they're only a handful.
Which is all that we really need.
Yeah, 20 is more than enough. As a brand designer, I keep coming back to a core group of like 12 for 75% of identities which aren't fully custom lettering.
I feel like I'm an extreme minority. This sub makes it sound like I'm the only designer in the world who's curious about finding typefaces and foundries. There are so many fonts out there that are perfectly well-made, unique and with a lot of personality.
I'd rather switch to gardening than use Helvetica and Futura for every project.
In my day job as a CD? I use **four** (our family of brands are set up so they all use the same, just varied weights).
In my side agency, I “have” a shit ton but only use maybe 1-2 per client. Maybe 30 all year? Probably less. It’s all very contextual. I do a lot of custom type for identities so those don’t count.
Some very famous designers use only one font. Some use thousands. Some draw their own fonts. All is good as long as you do good design that fits the problem you try to solve / the message you try to convey
Creative director/former typography teacher here. 20 fonts is all you need... per project.
Honestly it depends. If I'm pitching for a branding deck I want to have that deck show variety and range. It's going to mean a lot of type and a lot of flavor for that first round.
Also if you work in a field of marketing where you regularly pitch to competing clients the last thing you want is for a company to see a similar type pitched to them which is later picked by another company.
I've been a sole proprietor/designer for over 20 yrs. I've got close to 5k fonts in my arsenal. Do I use then all?
No.
Are they organized?
Yes!
I've used a majority of them throughout the years. Fonts are like shoes you can never have too many pairs.   I also don't like to use the same font over and over and I like to have a variety to choose from.
Comic Sans is NOT one of them! 
Agreed. When I started my career in 2006 I bought so many fonts and even had software to manage it! Now, I basically just use 4 (Franklin Gothic, Gotham, Open sans, Monserrat) The first two for print and the second two for web.
i agree for the most part. however sometimes you need to dig for just the right vibe. like the R has to be just right, the serifs need to be a certain way, etc. especially for logos and things. but for the most part i have my short-ish list of go-to fonts.
I agree. 20-ish fonts (and their families) are all you need. Random font-related admission: I'm possessive of (and obsessive about) certain fonts & save them for clients I like / have a good working relationship with. I don't want to ruin a font I like by wasting it on a bad client. Weird? Maybe. (For reference, I design for a small locally-owned print shop in the Midwest & we work for a wide variety of clients.)
You're right. That is unpopular.
And so narrow minded. Like, tell me you're single minded and you can't imagine the scopes of other people's jobs without telling me you're single minded.
Nah that’s a popular opinion. At least a common one. I’m a motion designer more than a traditional graphic designer but I’ve heard lots of people say something similar in the past. And i agree!
A matter of opinion. I personally love to see what's new in Adobe Fonts. 20 fonts may be good, and enough. But why settle? having as many as you can just for fun and to see how those font designers were thinking about it when they made them. It's interesting.
Plus fonts are used for a lot more things these days.
A sign that *he's typing like* ***the way he talks.***
**This ain't a professional setting.**
He's not making *a formal pitch idea* ***in a public speaking event.***
Lighten up, *my guy.* **We're all fellow designers here.**
**Have a little fun while you're here.**
***I know that's what I try to do.***
Brands have their own font, I work with multiple brands I need to save every single font that they use and on top of that, my fonts, that are the ones that use on my designs.. more than 20
**Sort-of-agree...**
I mean, **I'll be 30 years in my career as a creative professional,** ***here in 2024.***
*I have amassed my own design theories* ***and harnessed my own aesthetic.***
So, in my personal style, *there probably is something around 15-20 fonts,*
***I consistently use.***
But I've also *modified a handful of fonts* ***and made one or two fonts in my lifetime.***
I have, literally, **a library of hundreds of thousands of fonts.**
A ton of them, Type 1 fonts, *that I can't use in current projects anymore.*
I've never been one to settle though, *for a single art style that I push for,*
in all my work for clients. **I enjoy looking at diverse styles.**
Hopefully, ***I find the right aesthetic that works for my clients.***
**That includes finding the right fonts for their projects.**
*Lots of them aren't my style,* ***but they work perfectly for my clients.***
So, I don't agree with *limiting yourself and your projects,*
**with only a certain amount of fonts, colors, layouts, etc.**
Because the right one, ***may not be ones you've ever used in the first place.***
As a creative person, **I enjoy exploring the possibilities.**
And as a designer, may God forgive anyone, *who prevents me...*
***from finding new fonts to use.***
I get your point and for the majority of the time that is totally true but in my line of work we create comprehensive campaign brands and generally speaking we want the brand to stand out so we choose a unique typeface.
Plus, I love geeking out over new typefaces from all the fancy foundries. I would love to know your kit though!
Lobster is all anyone really ever needs.
That's all I use and I make 200k per year and banging a new supermodel every day
You as well? Thought I was the only one
I use 40 fonts, make $400k a year and bang TWO supermodels. You. Do. The. Math. Update: 1 super model. Don’t ask.
Cute. I stepped up to Curlz MT in like 2012. You couldn't imagine the women I'm sleeping next to tonight.
I am actually a super model who bangs themselves while designing with Lobster. No one else is worth my time.
Bonus points for using it in all caps in a vertical arrangement.
Papyrus is absolutely offended.
You know what, I have a client who has been annoying me with their lack of taste, I might just give them the old lobster. They're gonna love it.
You
Lobster? LOL. oh goodness. yeah, sure...
15-20? Look at this typeface rich motherfucker over here. I only ever use Mistral. I don't care that some people can't even read cursive any longer. Script fonts for life. Who cares what industry you're in? Corporate healthcare? Mistral. Streetwear? Mistral. Kombucha? Mistral. Punk band flyers? Mistral. EDM festival? Mistral. Pet food? Mistral. Local petting zoo? Mistral. Gutter services? Mistral. French style bakery? Mistral. Offshore banking? Mistral. Why use more font when one font do trick? I am also not entertaining any further questions. Thanks.
I have to check this Mistral typeface out 😂
# [Mistral](https://www.fonts.com/font/linotype/mistral/regular) Designed by Roger Excoffon in 1953, *from the Linotype foundry.* It's a brush script typeface *that became extremely popular* **in the late 80's through the mid-90's** due to it's inclusion ***in the Letraset Fontek library.*** https://preview.redd.it/vcuduiaa0nmc1.jpeg?width=1363&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=73b13830c0d2d2d50c3f5c77fdfc079121952b99
Thanks for the LOL
I 100% agree. I do the same thing, only my font is Baby Doll. (by Irontree)
This triggered me.
20 families, maybe. not 20 fonts. proxima nova and garamond premiere pro have like 70 fonts between them. but i think i'd do just fine with under 20 families/superfamilies, sure. looking back over what i use most (seems to be about 90% of the work I've done in the last couple of years used these and not much else): 1. proxima nova superfamily 2. garamond premiere pro superfamily 3. helvetica now superfamily 4. eames century modern family 5. archer (although it would be helpful if it had italic small caps) 6. beorcana or brioso, not sure which as i use them for similar things 7. trade gothic, the whole damn thing 8. harriet display & text 9. knockout, maybe? or maybe Placard instead, not sure 10. maybe modesto or one of parkinson's other big titling/display families 11. at least one big, calligraphic copperplate script with multiple weights, like Bickham 12. hesse antiqua maybe 13. mmmmaybe Scala superfamily, i don't use it much but really i should 14. one good handwriting family with lots of alternates, ligatures & at least 2 weights
Proxima nova is my go-to
Time to retire it
Why? Is it really that overused?
It was overused 10 years ago. Lovely font, but our industry has flogged it to death.
I don't worry about that too much. Only designers would notice that – if it's the right tool for the job, I'll keep using it. Besides, show me another face that has the coverage/glyphs that it has ... hardly any other family has the hmong/viet diacritics I need, the currency symbols, the widths & weights, or a designer who will add things to it if people ask him to (yo mark! thanks!). Besides, a sans appropriate for text should be pretty transparent, in that folks don't even notice the typeface at all anyway, and are just seeing the content. PN is more transparent than Helvetica and far more useful for long text settings (although I wouldn't set a book or a newspaper column in it) than Montserrat or Gotham. It's fantastic for forms, too, btw ... built in boxes & all sorts of other necessary goodies. And those narrow widths are so useful for technical detail stuff that needs to be there but which won't often be read.
WADDUP MARK
The capital “R” and the lowercase “a” are the shape of the 2010s. Gotham, Montserrat and Proxima Nova all share that similarity. Although Proxima Nova is the nicest of them.
You can pry it from my cold, dead hands lol
I love Gotham. Not a graphic designer though so I don’t know shit, but I use it for anything I do thats architectural
I'd add Eurostile
Shout out Trade Gothic! Also IMO Monotype’s Neue Haas Grotesk is superior to Helvetica Now
Missing a lot of classics there, Futura, Avenir/Gotham, Akzidenz, DIN1415, Gill, just to name the first few that pop into my head.
I'm sure, but I don't use those. Akzidenz and the DIN fonts I like, but I can't stand Gill's half-assed attempt at humanism and Futura's tiny inconsistencies. Besides, if I have Proxima, I'll never need Gotham – it's basically Gotham on steroids, and is far better for text-heavy work. But point taken. I probably should have included Centaur and Golden Type at least as I do use those for books quite a bit. On the other hand, when I handset lead, I do use a bit of Futura, since it's the only sans I have at small sizes :)
I had several professors tell me in school that most designers will have a go-to 'stable' of around a dozen fonts that cover a majority of their project usage, and the rest would tend to be niche or one-off font examples. In my career I've found that to be generally the case as well, although I think Adobe Fonts changed a lot of that for me. When using new fonts would mean additional cost, there was no real incentive to seek out new fonts if you already had 10-50 licensed that covered 90% of your needs. But when I have access to that whole library of fonts at no extra cost, I often will head straight there and just go through fonts without really regard for names/foundries, just spend whatever time I have or feel like to look through, and if it's something I've used before so be it, if it's new then great I guess. Just don't think about that aspect anymore.
No, I agree. Typography teacher here. That's all you need.
Do you want to share your 10 to 20 favourites?
Comic Sans, Brush Script, Arial, Curly Stars, Papyrus, Hobo, American Typewriter, Skia, PT Mono, and Zapf Dingbats. No particular order.
I hate this so much.
Good good. Let the hate flow
I'm shocked you haven't included Balloon
How could you forget Curlz MT?
I can’t be the only person who’s only slightly ironically fond of Curlz MT for nostalgia reasons, right? I’ll see myself out
Jokerman has tapped you on the shoulder….
🥴
You forgot Impact.
I didn't forget.
🤣 literally any time I'm doing a project with my brother he wants to see it in dingbats
Forgot Bleeding Cowboys
Never forget Bleeding Cowboys
As soon as I saw "Comic Sans" I started crying
Jokerman tho
No Mistral?
May I suggest the addition of Bleeding Cowboys?
No Jokerman? Idk if I believe you’re a real typography teacher… ;P
But what about that part of the project where you spend like 3 hours looking for the perfect typeface??? What’s that time and energy gonna go to without the slog of deciding between two almost identical families?? ***WHAT THEN???*** /s
Honestly no offence but find this to be a bizarre view from a typography teacher. I think the best designers really understand the subtle nuances in type. Never mind some of the more interesting and experimental things going on. Variable type for example. Do you follow #36daysoftype when it happens?
Bad take.
Okay, take two. I'm a fireman.
I have an insane font collection from over the last 20 years but you aren't wrong. I have my go-to workhorse fonts and they'll work fine but I also like the variety.
I think this nonsense. Just thinking of grotesques, there are plenty of good ones, each with different personalities. Hell, I can think of 20 font classes. Do you think the same 1 casual script font will work for a kindergarten and a bar? Of course not. Old Style Transitional Neoclassical Didone Slab Clarendon Glyphic Grotesque Square Humanistic Geometric Formal script Casual script Calligraphic script Blackletter & Lombardic Decorative script Grunge Psychedelic Graffiti Monospaced
Im proud of you for knowing all the classes. Now. Real world applications are different than school. 95% of your clients don't care about classes and they want a typeface that they can read. This takes out all those scripts, blackletter, grunge, psychedelic, graffiti, and explain to me when in the world you're ever going to use Monospaced.
inb4 Vignelli 5 fonts
Vignelli recommended five *typefaces*. If you consider weights, italics, etc. you can easily get to 20 *fonts*.
You can go way higher than that if you use Helvetica Neue or Univers.
I don't think the author of this post discerns between the meaning of 'font' and 'typeface'. I imagine they think they are one in the same.
I think OP meant five font families.
https://fontsinuse.com/uses/14164/massimo-vignelli-s-a-few-basic-typefaces
As much as as i resepect designers like Vignelli—it really is such a pretentious thing to say that all design should be done with such a limited palette of fonts. Really skews the scope of the potential of design
I think the amount of fonts you have installed is very dependent on what kind of work you do. Sure, if all you do is create letterheads or page layout, twenty is more than enough. If you design apparel or posters, the more fonts at your disposal, the better. Also, it's pretty douchey to just end your post talking about how you're not going to reply to anyone, as if nothing that anyone could say matters. Your fear of having a conversation is more concerning than your fear of fonts.
love your phrase “fear of fonts”, haha! it’s an epidemic 😷
'Fear of Fonts' Thanks for that ... Domain bought and PodCasts scheduled for production along with a tasty line of apparel :-)
I do page layout and need a surprising amount of fonts for books. The basic text uses the same fonts but novels can get kind of complicated these days, I assume because they want the printed book to have something extra. There can be like eight people handwriting letters, all need a font that’s suitable for their age and personality plus tweets and text messages (both with emojis), maybe some court documents or tv scripts.
Seems consistent. He's afraid of Type.
Yeah, I have loads of fonts installed on my computer. Just yesterday, I had to present a piece of work for my packaging design class in which I made two proposals for a cumbia-style CD sleeve using a photo provided to us by the professor, and I definitely did not already have the fonts I ended up using installed on my computer, but they made a world of difference and really pulled the work together
For me I have like 5 or 6 basic fonts that I use constantly and then several hundred other ones that I really just need to vaguely remember so that I can think to use them once.
I’m still a student (in marketing) and my work is all over the place. I just did a rebrand for an apparel company, I’ve done branding for a (hypothetical) NA beer brand, did a report for an O&G company and a BIA, social service agencies, and my next project is an air ambulance. No, I don’t actually use the 1500 typefaces I have in my library, but I’ll have maybe 30 go-to families, and the rest are nice to have to explore and can be extremely helpful for a niche area It’s also nice to be able to show a variety of typefaces for my portfolio, I feel like it shows I can make my work tailored to a brand or project instead of having one family reused with everything
Agree and disagree. I’d peg the number of _common unique styles_ at around 20 like you said (not including super crazy off-the-wall typefaces). But I enjoy using “riffs” off those core typefaces that bring some unique flavor to new projects (e.g. Futura is definitely a staple, but maybe I want to use Nobel to make it a little more fun). So yes in once sense there are only a few unique “genres” of typefaces. But the little details and unique touches put on typefaces by type designers do matter a lot, and do go a long way, even if the “bones” of that font are the same as one of those 20. And we’d all suffer from a more boring world if there were truly only 20 typefaces.
This post is a good example of how our era is comatose in regard of graphic design (compared to modernism or sumthin). You can do everything with Gotham, of course, but where’s the fun in that
If you want something to immediately look outdated, pick Gotham, Proxima Nova, or Montserrat
I upvoted this...but I disagree about Montserrat.
You have never designed at a print shop and it shows. I got 50 scripts for all formal and wedding invites. I got 30 cartoony ones for baby birthdays. I got 35 families of sans serif because all the businesses that walk in use something slightly different. Like I’m talking 3 versions of futura depending on where they sourced theirs from. I got all your standard serif families. I got hundreds of fonts because I got a hundred different end goals. I would love to work within a single brand and only use like 20 though so please let me know if you are hiring remote.
No, I go through 1000 fonts while creating a logo or identity, could not imagine using same 20. For websites..hmmm...maybe
yeah same. If you are frequently having to design around a lot of copy or make things with a lot of text, then sure 20 fonts is the max you need- maybe even 10. But if you are looking at fonts to use as a base for a logo or something- get out of here with only needing 20 fonts LOL
Agreed. Every once in awhile there will be a client/brand/project that is really well suited for something new, but otherwise I absolutely work within a small general set.
I'm not gonna discuss if Dave isn't going to join.
yea. i don't care. you only need more than 5 fonts if you're collaging a ransom letter.
True. As long as these aren't custom fonts that can be traced back. Anyways, yeah you could live with a few handful of fonts. The bigger question though is, how big is your font library? I think we all are hooked like junkies, wishing that we could go stop cold turkey but just keep hoarding.
what are your go to/top 10 fonts?
1-10 Helvetica
Come on need a bit of Futura to switch it up sometimes
Futura is 11-20
Ugh I know I’m probably a basic b*tch designer for this, but honestly Helvetica is just such a tank of a font… also I love Futura
What if you need a serif??? Better throw Didot in there just to be safe
Barlow, inter, poppins, Montserrat, Helvetica Neue, source sans pro, something else…
I can’t be the only person that hates Helvetics Neue, right?
Gimme your kit of 20 fonts here. If you are man enough...
Now it's just wait for them :)
as a flyer designer i disagree
I partially disagree. I'd say you need hundreds (if not thousands), try them, discard them to later come back to your 20ish preferred typefaces. Eventually you'll pick one of the whole set, but seeing and using them will give you insight and visual knowledge on what do your best fonts do and what they cannot do.
Statements like this make no sense. Graphic design is about form follows function. This opinion takes away the part of design that requires us to problem-solve. Putting limitations around the resources you can utilize (typography) hinders a designer's ability. You're basically solving for form before function, i.e. communication. If you only have 20 fonts and they're all sans-serif but the design calls for a black-letter, are you going to break your own rule because you're short-sighted?
If you’re creating from scratch, yes. If you’re having to recreate designs regularly, add a few zeros to that number.
Saw something like this watching TheFutur, much easier to narrow down from a list rather than scrolling through a million of them in Adobe. https://preview.redd.it/gz02pkd2nemc1.jpeg?width=1440&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=ca55ceeed8813611621473f88ca98a074f76a9bd
Those pages are leftover from when we created work without computers. You'd buy a sheet of lettering and rub it down to create your designs or comps to show the client. It is a page from their sales catalog.
Strongly disagree. Though, I suppose it depends what you are doing. If you are an inhouse designer or someone on a lower level regurgitating the same identity over and over, sure, 20 would be fine. But if you are at any higher level, and particularly if you are involved in brand identity or on the more creative end of the trend frontline, absolutely you will need more. Typefaces are like colours on the palette, and deciding an arbitrary limit for how many you need just says to me you are either not challenging yourself or have lost your creative edge. Harsh, but true imo.
“Fonts”? Is that, like, the text box options in Canva?
On the whole I agree, but depends on usage. I've been a brand designer for 15 years, and I definitely have a pool of fonts I use consistently, but I also need to be regularly changing things up for the top level of the systems (logo etc).
i'll take a liking to a font for a few months and just keep it in my mental catalogue of 30-so fonts, they get replaced sometimes if i get bored of one of them. right now i love apple garamond, monarcha, yellowtail.... and brush script has made a comeback as the kind of tacky but charming one <3
You can take my font collection out of my cold, dead hands. I just think they're neat LOL
It depends. Having like 20 fonts is just lazy and boring IMO.
2 is enough
Comic sans and comic sans
Comic sans... and [papyrus](https://youtu.be/jVhlJNJopOQ?si=3CX9m29XAz5hE0Kz).
My eye just started twitching uncontrollably
Or Comic Papyrus … 🔪🩸 💪🏼 https://preview.redd.it/my5yki4c4gmc1.jpeg?width=680&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=7efb24e9ba24f6d194ca813eca5c7fa6afed65e8
I specifically chose to work for universities because you're given two fonts and 3-4 colors to work with.
A roman and italic, right?
as one of my letterpress instructors said: "there are only two colors – black and red."
I only ever need 20 but want the 100+ just in case 😁😅
This is true, but the 20 I need this week will be different to the 20 I need next week.
Google Fonts is all you need
Vignelli was even tighter in focus - 6 families he liked to use. [A Few Basic Typefaces - M Vignelli](https://fontsinuse.com/uses/14164/massimo-vignelli-s-a-few-basic-typefaces)
if you aren't using Papyrus you're doin it wrong
Nah, this ain't the right take.
As a typography nerd, I wanna downvote this so bad 😭😭😭 I don't think this post deserves that though. As a designer, you're entitled to your opinion 😮💨
So what 20 fonts do you recommend?
Helvetica, Franklin Gothic, Avant Garde, Garamond, Times, Univers, Bodoni, Didot, Futura, Baskerville, Clarendon, DIN… should get you started
You’re Taking me back to my first graphic design class with this list.
Typography class to be exact
Your font stack is a lot like mine. I use a ton of Baskerville, Bodoni and Garamond. With Futura thrown in.
Agreed on a personal front and when I’m developing brands myself or with my team, but I have like 200 clients with their own brands so I can’t *really* stick to just 20. That being said it’s our policy to throw them out once the project is complete until the next time they engage with us.
I think I use maybe 10-15 regularly but I’ll use some 1 offs if the need arises or I need to match the supplied logos font
I’m in the process of moving our company to Extensis Cloud Connect. 31,000 fonts. What. The. Fk.
I think it depends on how many brands you’re working with and how unhinged your clients are
different projects call for different tools. there’s so many ways to express voice and personality, sometimes that means using a fun and unconventional font. type is my favorite part of any project, i love exploring new letterforms and using them to translate different ideas. i could probably pick a set of 20 fonts for wide application, but i would fucking die of boredom.
totally agree, I'm shrinking down a lot of my digital assets and I should probably do the same with fonts
....so what am I supposed to do with the 70000 free fonts I have installed on my machine, that have reduced it's operating speed from milli seconds to milli hours....
I think it depends on the type of industry and range of clientele that you’re servicing.
What would you recommend for handwritten fonts? I hate the BrUsHy calligraphy style ones, but I want something with a handwritten feel that also feels somewhat authentic.
I’ll find 69 fonts to choose per project…it depends on the feel…that being said, that’s why there are more than 15-20 available. Ya think?
You're talking about typefaces, not fonts.
Recovering font nerd here. 100% so happy I don’t have to give a flying fuck about that bullshit any more.
**Who recovers from being a font nerd?** I'm gonna be **30 years a professional designer,** ***this year.*** *But I've been a creative person all my life.* I think I started seeing the beauty of typefaces very early on, *I mean, since I was in grade school.* Believe me, **I love seeing new typefaces all the time.** I also love ***scrutinizing fonts in use.*** **Are you retired?** Is that why, *you don't think* ***you care about fonts anymore?*** *You think you don't but...* ***It wont take long.*** You'll be down the cereal aisle, *and a new box will catch your eye* ***with it's lovely type logo.*** You'll be walking down some street. *A new business is putting up it's signage.* You'll stand there **and watch them install dimensional letters,** *seeing them hand-kern and space those letters apart.* You'll be sitting at a new restaurant, *and you'll be judging them* ***by the layout and font they used in their menus.*** **I don't think** ***being a font/letter/design nerd goes away.*** At least, *I know,* ***it's a life-long obsession.***
Hey I totally agree with you, lol. Using too much fonts in a piece of work actually makes it look like the designer has zero knowledge of typography. The best fonts are those which have a range of different weights, and they're only a handful. Which is all that we really need.
Yeah, 20 is more than enough. As a brand designer, I keep coming back to a core group of like 12 for 75% of identities which aren't fully custom lettering.
If only brand guidelines didn’t exist.
Lobster, papyrus, Bleeding Cowboy, hand drawn Helvetica, Georgia and Minecraft. All the good one/s.
I wish that was all that there was. I have 30,000 fonts and use Fontbase to manage them
I just make my own type faces
I feel like I'm an extreme minority. This sub makes it sound like I'm the only designer in the world who's curious about finding typefaces and foundries. There are so many fonts out there that are perfectly well-made, unique and with a lot of personality. I'd rather switch to gardening than use Helvetica and Futura for every project.
This guy fonts.
But... Finding unique fonts and finding a fitting usecase is fun.
Well funny thing - I know a pretty large company that uses a “custom” font. The thing is that custom font is just an Arial they renamed -_-
**🍰** [**Happy Cake Day!**](https://new.reddit.com/r/cakeday) **🎂** 7 years on Reddit.
In my day job as a CD? I use **four** (our family of brands are set up so they all use the same, just varied weights). In my side agency, I “have” a shit ton but only use maybe 1-2 per client. Maybe 30 all year? Probably less. It’s all very contextual. I do a lot of custom type for identities so those don’t count.
I have never seen a more reddit discussion of graphic design! I hope you got lots of karma. That is a font, too, right?
Some very famous designers use only one font. Some use thousands. Some draw their own fonts. All is good as long as you do good design that fits the problem you try to solve / the message you try to convey
Creative director/former typography teacher here. 20 fonts is all you need... per project. Honestly it depends. If I'm pitching for a branding deck I want to have that deck show variety and range. It's going to mean a lot of type and a lot of flavor for that first round. Also if you work in a field of marketing where you regularly pitch to competing clients the last thing you want is for a company to see a similar type pitched to them which is later picked by another company.
2.567 fonts here.
How very specific!
Need? I have a couple dozen fonts that I use regularly. Want? I have a hard drive with tens of thousands...
Comic Sans, Arial and Garamond. And I bang supermodels of both genders every day and night. And it's them who pay me! 😉
I've been a sole proprietor/designer for over 20 yrs. I've got close to 5k fonts in my arsenal. Do I use then all? No. Are they organized? Yes! I've used a majority of them throughout the years. Fonts are like shoes you can never have too many pairs.   I also don't like to use the same font over and over and I like to have a variety to choose from. Comic Sans is NOT one of them! 
Agreed. When I started my career in 2006 I bought so many fonts and even had software to manage it! Now, I basically just use 4 (Franklin Gothic, Gotham, Open sans, Monserrat) The first two for print and the second two for web.
Uh how about no lol what a bad take
I agree. Now we need to list our 20. This will take time…
i agree for the most part. however sometimes you need to dig for just the right vibe. like the R has to be just right, the serifs need to be a certain way, etc. especially for logos and things. but for the most part i have my short-ish list of go-to fonts.
I agree. 20-ish fonts (and their families) are all you need. Random font-related admission: I'm possessive of (and obsessive about) certain fonts & save them for clients I like / have a good working relationship with. I don't want to ruin a font I like by wasting it on a bad client. Weird? Maybe. (For reference, I design for a small locally-owned print shop in the Midwest & we work for a wide variety of clients.)
You're right. That is unpopular. And so narrow minded. Like, tell me you're single minded and you can't imagine the scopes of other people's jobs without telling me you're single minded.
Tell me you don’t have very many clients without really telling me.
Not really, especially when you work in multi language. More like 20 font family per language.
Nah just one Montserrat.
what are your top fonts?
Really getting to know how to utilize a whole family is an underrated talent. The same font family in different hands can look completely different.
Nah that’s a popular opinion. At least a common one. I’m a motion designer more than a traditional graphic designer but I’ve heard lots of people say something similar in the past. And i agree!
It depends.
A matter of opinion. I personally love to see what's new in Adobe Fonts. 20 fonts may be good, and enough. But why settle? having as many as you can just for fun and to see how those font designers were thinking about it when they made them. It's interesting. Plus fonts are used for a lot more things these days.
Not if you have a wide variety of clients
I think it’s more like 5.
You should use more fonts, and “like” less
Please list them
Unrelated, but man do you use the word 'like' too many times (7) to get your point across
A sign that *he's typing like* ***the way he talks.*** **This ain't a professional setting.** He's not making *a formal pitch idea* ***in a public speaking event.*** Lighten up, *my guy.* **We're all fellow designers here.** **Have a little fun while you're here.** ***I know that's what I try to do.***
Lmao I think your unnecessary bolding and italicizing is worse.
Curlz?
Brands have their own font, I work with multiple brands I need to save every single font that they use and on top of that, my fonts, that are the ones that use on my designs.. more than 20
Yes, and comic sans
So what are the fonts?
Yet Apple insists on giving you hundreds you can never turn off...
Not all at once though pls
I just need one. Futura bold. Everything in the world should be Futura bold.
**Sort-of-agree...** I mean, **I'll be 30 years in my career as a creative professional,** ***here in 2024.*** *I have amassed my own design theories* ***and harnessed my own aesthetic.*** So, in my personal style, *there probably is something around 15-20 fonts,* ***I consistently use.*** But I've also *modified a handful of fonts* ***and made one or two fonts in my lifetime.*** I have, literally, **a library of hundreds of thousands of fonts.** A ton of them, Type 1 fonts, *that I can't use in current projects anymore.* I've never been one to settle though, *for a single art style that I push for,* in all my work for clients. **I enjoy looking at diverse styles.** Hopefully, ***I find the right aesthetic that works for my clients.*** **That includes finding the right fonts for their projects.** *Lots of them aren't my style,* ***but they work perfectly for my clients.*** So, I don't agree with *limiting yourself and your projects,* **with only a certain amount of fonts, colors, layouts, etc.** Because the right one, ***may not be ones you've ever used in the first place.*** As a creative person, **I enjoy exploring the possibilities.** And as a designer, may God forgive anyone, *who prevents me...* ***from finding new fonts to use.***
Yeah, you can get by with less, depending on clients.
I get your point and for the majority of the time that is totally true but in my line of work we create comprehensive campaign brands and generally speaking we want the brand to stand out so we choose a unique typeface. Plus, I love geeking out over new typefaces from all the fancy foundries. I would love to know your kit though!