Choosing type
When you have some text, how can you choose a typeface? Many people—professional designers included—go through an app’s font menu until we find one we like. But the aim of this Google Fonts Knowledge module is to show that there are many considerations that can improve our type choices. By setting some useful constraints to aid our type selection, we can also develop a critical eye for analyzing type along the way.
Filter lessons by topic
Choosing web fonts: A beginner's all-in-one guide
A checklist for choosing type
Emotive considerations for choosing typefaces
Choosing reliable typefaces
Exploring typefaces with multiple weights or grades
Exploring width in type
Choosing typefaces that have optical sizes
Pairing typefaces
Pairing typefaces within a family & superfamily
Pairing typefaces by the same type designer or type foundry
Pairing typefaces using the font matrix
Exploring x-height & the em square
Adding fonts to Google Docs and Slides
Em
A unit of measurement, 1em is equal to the size of a font. Adjusting font size will resize glyphs relative to the em square.
Weight axis (wght)
An axis found in some variable fonts that controls the font file’s weight parameter.
Optical sizes
Different versions of a typeface optimized for use at specific sizes or size ranges.
Typeface
A typeface is what you see; a font is what you use.
X-height
The height of the lowercase characters that have no ascenders nor descenders, which indicates how tall or short the type appears.
Contrast
The difference between the thick and thin parts of a stroke. A monolinear typeface has low stroke contrast, and is the opposite of a high contrast face.