If you’ve ever tried to design an intricate, unique headline you’ve probably felt the anxiety of seeing the exact same style being used elsewhere. I know I have. With layered font families, we can create novel combinations of shadows, weights, fills, and ornaments to set our designs completely apart. While I know that infinite is a big word (see above), let me tell you something: a layered font system with only 5 styles (and many of these have 10 or more!) can allow you to create over 100 different combinations. That seems pretty infinite to me, especially when you add in color and texture to the mix. With no further ado, allow me to introduce 20 of the best layered fonts that are completely and *infinitely* stackable.
Brandy
Starting off our list of the best layered fonts, we have Brandy. Brandy is an impressive design set particularly suited for beverage branding. Think a wine, whisky or brandy bottle. You can also play with various levels of fills, shadows and ornaments.
Swiftel Family Layers
Unlike any other multi layered fonts on this list, Swiftel provides a shine layer in case you want to play with a glossy style.
Microbrew Complete Family
Microbrew comes with different types of inline styles and shadows, opening the door for seemingly endless combinations. Providing three base styles (named onetwothree) Microbrew builds on them to allow you to add innovative 3D effects.
Dacota Layered Typeface + Extras
Need a fancier, more ornamental style? Dacota might be just what you’re looking for. Besides offering solid and rough variants, this font family comes with impressive drop line and drop shadow elements.
Le Havre Hand
Time to mix and match. Le Havre boasts 20 different fonts that are diverse in terms of stroke, feel and dimension.
Sorvettero
In case your design needs to portray a more playful vibe, Sorvettero is a versatile allusion to joy and comic art.
Signyard Family
Used in this article’s header image, Signyard is every marquee letter lover’s dream.
Tervia Font Family
Tervia’s inline styles are reminiscent of lettering, and letters project that organic feel that only truly hand drawn elements can.
Sparhawk Complete Family
Worried that your “hand drawn” look won’t feel genuine because double letters look identical? Sparhawk has solved the issue by including double-letter ligatures to keep your “rr”s unique.
Fonseca
This font duo is all about those sleek, geometric vibes with an Art Deco twist. It’s got bold, clean lines that add a modern edge to any project. The uppercase letters are super eye-catching, perfect for when you want to make a big statement. Plus, the bonus styles let you play around and get creative with your designs.
Humoresque Layered Mini Font
We love Humoresque because it’s not easy to recreate a vintage circus look with digital type, and this font family makes it feel like so.
Elise
Elise evokes weddings, joy and celebration. Check out its unique scalloped borders and swirls, they might be that last touch your print design project needs.
Dusty Circus: 5 Layer Font System
Like Humoresque, Dusty Circus recreates fun childhood memories and play. Its unique 5-layer font system lets you create dozens of combinations of retro, ornate type that feels hand drawn.
Carneval & Extra
If you’re looking for a more naïve style, Carneval provides that uncomplicated handwritten look.
Festivo LC
Festivo is, like its name indicates, quite the festive font family. Dotted shadows, quirky inline elements and playful extras make this family a great addition to your design toolbox.
Graphique Pro Next Comp
For a more geometric approach when working with layer fonts, try Graphique Pro. Its straight lines and symmetry make it the perfect addition to a more formal project.
Trend Rough Family
Taking a sans-serif and a slab font as a base, Trend Rough also includes many dingbats that you can use to create banners and backgrounds for different kinds of headlines.
Crazy Diamond
This family is a bubbly mix of outlined and solid letterforms that bring a fresh, playful vibe to any project. The bonus doodles are a great touch, making it perfect for designs that need to stand out and grab attention.
What Is a Layered Font Style?
Before you use any layered fonts in your work, it’s important to understand what designers mean when they talk about layered fonts or layer fonts.
Put simply, layered fonts are made up of numerous layers, as the name implies. They may have one base layer of shading that underpins the font, for example, and a secondary layer on top that forms the outline of the text, and even additional layers on top of that to fill in each letter.
The nature of layered fonts makes them exceptionally versatile. You can mix and match different layers, like shades, outlines, and fills, to change how each font looks and create your own combos.
As touched on in the intro, even if you’ve got a layered font with just a handful of styles, you can effectively make dozens of different combos. You can also mix and match different colors in your layer fonts, opening up more opportunity for experimentation and innovation.
Another benefit of working with layer fonts is that they naturally give off a kind of raised or “stacked” aesthetic, which is great for drawing attention to key pieces of text. It’s common, for example, to use multi-layered font styles in headers and display ads to reach and connect with your readers and upgrade the aesthetic of a page or piece of content.
How Do Designers Use Layered Fonts?
Thanks to their immense versatility, there are many different ways in which designers and creators can play around with layered fonts.
They’re very commonly used in the field of advertising, for example. On various sorts of ad materials, from brochures to billboards to display ads, layered fonts add a lot of value. They’re bold and impactful, grabbing attention right away and standing out from the crowd. Clever use of layer fonts may therefore make ad campaigns more effective, with a better ROI.
Designers can activate or hide each layer to produce varying effects and styles in their ads. They can add shades, for example, or change the number of layers in each font to suit their clients’ needs and attract their audience.
The decorative nature of many layered fonts also makes them a great addition to formal or celebratory documents, like wedding invites or certificates. Again, designers are able to play around with the layers, adding or removing them accordingly to produce the desired effect. More layers can create a more decorative, elegant, and sophisticated feel, while fewer layers generate a gentle, more subtle and minimalistic aesthetic.
Layered fonts can also be used in web design. They’re great for landing pages, banners, and headers at the top of web pages and posts. They help to draw attention to key parts of the page or the most important pieces of information, while smaller and simpler fonts can be used for the rest of the body text.
How to Work with Layer Fonts?
In order to use layer fonts, you’ll need some sort of graphic design program that is compatible with them. That will allow you to create new layers, add and remove layers from your chosen layer fonts, and adjust their size, color, and positioning to suit your exact needs. Many popular design programs are fully compatible with layer fonts.
Any other layer fonts you’d like to add?
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Brand strategist. Creating design tools to empower creative entrepreneurs. Author of the Lean Branding book. MA in Design Management from the Savannah College of Art and Design (SCAD).
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