Isometric illustration kit – People By Formfrom
Creating a mobile app requires a lot of back-end work to create the stunning visuals you see on your screen. Developers and designers work hand in hand to create the mobile apps we use in our daily lives.
With so many mobile apps available, the challenge for developers and designers is to find a way to make their apps stand out. One way to do that is to find a font that works for the app. Giving value to small details like the typeface can completely change your app.
Read on for the 10 best fonts you can use in your next mobile app design. Learn how to choose the perfect font for your mobile apps and see how Creative Market can give you a little front-end support!
The Importance of Choosing the Best Fonts for Apps
The ideal font choice can make or break an app’s user experience. Depending on the kind of app you’re developing, different typefaces can convey different personalities and will each give your app a distinct look and feel.
Remember that a font’s primary job is to communicate ideas and get your content across. Taking the time to choose an appropriate typeface for your mobile app is worthwhile because selecting the best font for your app will improve your UI design, and ultimately improve the experience for your end-user.
Things to Consider When Choosing a Font for Mobile App Design
So you’ve done your research and have certain fonts in mind for your user interface (UI). There are several factors you can consider when selecting a font to use for your app.
Below are the three basic questions you can ask yourself when faced with potential fonts you can use for app UI design:
Is the Font Legible?
Legibility is important when choosing the best mobile font. Choosing a font that is difficult to read could irritate your users and will keep them from fully enjoying what your app has to offer. You’ll want your users to ultimately be able to read and understand your app’s content, helping them decide if it’s something they truly find useful and valuable to them.
Is the Font Available in Multiple Weights?
Font weight is essentially the thickness of the letter stroke. In a typeface, you can have font weights vary from thin to extra heavy. In certain mobile apps, you can let your users choose what font-weight works best for them. This is useful because different people feel more comfortable reading different font weights.
Versatile font weights are a key factor when it comes to your app’s design. The weight of your font will vary from light to bold, which will affect the way the text appears on the screen. For example, you’ll want to opt for a typeface like Finis Text as the main font for a text-heavy mobile app because of the versatility the multiple font weights offer.
How Accessible is the Font?
With thousands of free fonts available online, it’s easy to choose a typeface that has already been used by other mobile and web apps.
If you really want to stand out, Creative Market offers thousands of typefaces that you can easily use for all your app design needs. Creative Market offers some of the best mobile fonts that you can use for all your app development and design projects.
Best Fonts for Mobile Apps
When choosing the best fonts for mobile apps, it’s good to consider the legibility of your typeface when rendered in smaller sizes. You’ll have to remember that your typeface is going to be viewed on mobile screens, so you’ll want a sans serif typeface that is easy on the eyes when viewed on different mobile devices.
Here are some of the best fonts for mobile apps:
1. Grotesco – South American Grotesque
Grotesco is a South American grotesque font family that marries the functionality of an American sans serif and the Latino rhythm and flair, with influence from iconic designers like Adrian Frutiger peppered in along the way. This dynamic typeface available in 20 font styles is great for digital usage, with its approachable and charismatic look that will make any mobile app look reliable and trustworthy.
2. Ageo – Geometric Sans Serif Typeface
Ageo is a sans serif font family that utilizes a soft geometric style. With 18 font styles ranging from thin to heavy (with matching italics!), this geometric sans serif typeface is a compromise of Bauhaus and modern styles with its minimalism, versatility, and legibility. This set of sans serif fonts is great for apps that are text-heavy, making reading easy with its friendly and open curves that are easy on the eyes.
3. Davish – Minimalist Sans Serif
Davish is a minimalist monoline sans serif font. This typeface was carefully designed in 13 font styles ranging from thin to bold, and will surely give your website a bold yet professional look. Inspired by classic typography and modern minimalist design, this typeface is a good font choice for no-fuss productivity apps.
4. Visby – Humanist Sans Serif
Visby is a humanist sans serif typeface inspired by the Arctic. Available in 16 font styles, this sans serif is a great set of fonts to use on any mobile operating system because of its legibility at any size. When used in lowercase, the font has a neutral but friendly appearance; on the other hand, its uppercase letters give a more sophisticated and authoritative look, perfect for mobile app design.
5. TT Wellingtons – Humanist Sans Serif
TT Wellingtons is an elegant typeface that combines English humanist sans serif font styles of the 20th century with the requirements of modern geometric type. It calls to mind other popular fonts, like Open Sans and Source Sans. This typeface contains 18 font styles that make the perfect mobile apps fonts because of their simplicity and legibility at any size.
Best Fonts for Web App Design
When choosing a good font for web app design, you have a little more flexibility because you’re selecting fonts that can be viewed on a bigger screen. While you still want to make sure that your font is easily adaptable for mobile versions of your web app, you’ll also want to use certain fonts that can effectively communicate the contents of your app.
Here are some of the best fonts you can use for web app design:
6. Industrial Sans – Geometric Sans Serif Font
Industrial is a visual contemporary sans serif typeface that will work well for minimal and modern websites. Available in 6 font styles, the sleek and industrial design of this typeface optimizes form and function.
7. Urbani – Neohumanist/Neo-Grotesque
Urbani is a mix of neohumanist and neo-grotesque font styles available in 18 font styles. Because of their versatility and friendly appearance, these fonts work for apps that are text-heavy in their UI design because they are simple and easily readable on any screen size.
8. Brada Sans – Versatile Sans Serif
Brada Sans is a typeface made from eight fonts. It would look good on apps that want a more professional and sleek look. The clean and modern typeface works well for apps that have long stretches of body text, whether they are viewed on desktop devices or Android phones.
9. Flatline Serif – Sensual Serif Font
Flatline is an elegant, modern serif family that will give any web app a dash of sophistication. This font family includes 16 font styles and will work especially well when paired with a sans serif typeface like Proxima Nova or Open Sans. Flatline Serif is an easy-to-use, modern font family that will give any web app a premium and luxe feel.
10. Chesna Grotesk – Geometric Sans Serif
This geometric sans serif typeface was inspired by classic grotesque typefaces such as Avenir, Futura, and Circular. Chesna comes in 20 weights, 10 italics, and includes extended language support, along with fractions, tabular numbers, arrows, alternative characters and ligatures.
How to Choose the Best Fonts for Mobile Apps
When picking fonts for mobile apps, it’s important to keep the end user in mind, every step of the way.
That applies when picking the main font for your app, along with any secondary or tertiary fonts.
You have to choose fonts your users will feel comfortable with. These fonts should boast high legibility, generous spacing, and other key features that make them clear and legible on the smallest of screens.
Many fonts just don’t work on a mobile operating system user interface. Others, like Urbani, Ageo, and Grotesco, work remarkably well, ranking among the most popular fonts for mobile apps.
Don’t let that popularity put you off.
There’s no need to eschew widely used modern fonts in your app UI design, just because they’re used in other apps.
In fact, more often than not, it’s best to stick with these tried and true popular fonts that have already proven themselves to work well on mobile screens and devices.
That way, your users will most likely already be familiar with your chosen font, which should help them feel right at home when using your app, with less risk of readability or compatibility issues.
While choosing the best font for any app may seem intimidating, we hope that it is now a little easier with the fonts listed above. Always remember that the right font adds style and clarity to any app. Make sure that your font can adapt to any platform by finding one that works well for both your web and mobile app needs.
If you’re looking for more tools to help you get started with that app, Creative Market has a wide range of fonts and templates that you can use for all your design needs! Creative Market’s app design templates and creative mobile & web mockups can help you make your ideas a reality. Sign up for an account today and start developing that mobile app idea!
Why are Some Fonts Better Suited for Apps Than Others?
Now that you have a solid rundown of some of the best fonts for apps (both mobile and web-based), a question still remains: why do some fonts work better than others? It all boils down to what your goals are: what do you want the user to do and experience when using your product or service?
Criteria that largely determine how well a font will work on any given app include:
- Readability – is the font easy to read on both desktop computers and mobile devices?
- Adaptability – does the font maintain its structure and sharpness even when the screen is zoomed in or out?
- Brand compatibility – does the font for the app match the style and design aesthetic of the of the app and the brand as a whole?
- Load time – does the font show up as pixelated or does it take a long time to load? This will impact the user experience.
FAQ
This is a subjective matter, but many experts agree that sans-serif fonts are indeed the best option for mobile apps. A geometric sans serif font like Ageo, for example, has a clean, neat nature, making it a terrific fit for mobile app design, as it’s modern and easy to read.
San Francisco, Proxima Nova, and Open Sans are other classic examples to create web, app, and editorial design projects.
In general, you should aim for around 16 to 20 pixels font size on mobile apps. 14 pixels should be seen as the absolute bottom limit, with 16 working best for body text.
This applies to any type of mobile app font, whether you’re working with Nunito Sans, Proxima Nova, Open Sans, or anything else.
There are many fonts in the Google collection that work well for establishing brand identity in app design. Roboto is a versatile choice, for instance, especially for big pieces of body text.
Open Sans is another popular pick, along with Playfair Display, Work Sans, Nunito Sans, and Noto Sans. So if you’re wondering what are some of the best fonts for Androids, this small list should point you in the right direction.
Some popular Adobe Fonts to use in mobile and web app design include Bree, Basic Sans, Yrsa, and Brandon Grotesque.
Apple uses the SF (San Francisco) Pro font for its app design. San Francisco Pro has a large X height compared to other popular web fonts and boasts a sleek, easy-to-read style many users appreciate.
Both free and paid fonts work just as well as long as you make the right choice for the application in question.
Free fonts sometimes lack the detail and depth of paid alternatives, though, so you may wish to consider a premium font for app and web design.
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