From the course: Typography: Choosing and Combining Typefaces

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Combining typefaces based on stylistic contrasts

Combining typefaces based on stylistic contrasts

From the course: Typography: Choosing and Combining Typefaces

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Combining typefaces based on stylistic contrasts

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Building a typographic palette that works is based on experience and intuition. There are no hard and fast rules, but you can make good choices if you follow some basic principles. One of the most important principles in choosing and combining typefaces involves contrast. Another way of describing typographic contrast is thinking of opposing forces. Or the classic phrase, opposites attract. The most popular method of creating typographic contrast is pairing a serif with a sans serif. They each offer something different. This example shows the book or regular weight of some popular serif sans serif combinations. In general, you can keep your type combos simple and have plenty of visual variety by sticking to two type families from different classifications. The flip side of this principle, something you want to avoid, is pairing up typefaces from the same classification. As you can see in this example, if you put two slab serifs together, they might not be different enough from one…

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