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Great graphic design is powered by great font selection. But picking great fonts is a challenge for most people. Luckily, Canva has made adding great fonts to your designs much easier. In this tutorial, our team of design experts will cover the best paragraph fonts in Canva.
What are Paragraph Fonts?
The characteristics of paragraph fonts, often referred to as body text or body type, can greatly influence readability and the overall aesthetics of a text. Here are some key characteristics to consider:
- Typeface: The design of the characters in a font. This can range from serif (fonts with small lines or strokes attached to the ends of larger strokes in a letter or symbol, such as Times New Roman) to sans-serif (fonts without these lines, such as Arial), or even more decorative or specialty typefaces.
- Size: Measured in points, the size of a font can greatly affect readability. For most printed work, a size of 10 to 12 points is common for body text. On the web, a size of 16px is often considered a good starting point.
- Weight: This refers to the boldness or lightness of a font. Regular is the standard weight, but there can be a variety of weights from light, medium, bold, to extra bold. A heavier weight might be used for emphasis, but isn’t typically used for body text as it can be hard to read in large blocks.
- Line spacing (leading): The vertical distance between lines of text. Too little spacing can make text feel cramped and difficult to read, while too much can make it feel disconnected.
- Character spacing (kerning and tracking): Kerning refers to the space between specific character pairs, and tracking refers to the overall letter spacing. Proper kerning and tracking can improve the readability of body text.
- Color: Though not a physical characteristic of the font itself, the color of the text and its background can have a big impact on readability. High contrast (like black text on a white background or white text on a black background) is typically easiest to read.
- Legibility and Readability: Legibility refers to how easy it is to distinguish one letter from another in a particular typeface, while readability refers to how easy it is to read words, phrases, and blocks of copy. Good paragraph fonts should score high in both.
- Style: Some fonts have a distinct style that might carry certain connotations (like formal, casual, old-fashioned, modern, etc). The style of the font should match the tone and purpose of the text.
- Width: Fonts can have variable widths, from condensed to expanded. This is an additional consideration, especially when dealing with space constraints.
- X-Height: This is the height of lowercase letters. Fonts with a larger x-height tend to be more legible at small sizes, making them good choices for body text.
Best Canva Paragraph Fonts
1. ABeeZee
ABeeZee is a friendly and legible sans-serif typeface with a casual and approachable feel. Designed for early readers, it features open letterforms and distinct characters, making it easy to read and understand.
2. Panton
Panton is a modern, sans-serif typeface with a geometric construction and a humanist influence, available in a variety of weights and styles, including italic and condensed.
3. Roboto
Roboto combines geometric shapes with friendly, open curves to create a natural reading rhythm in longer texts. It has a mechanical skeleton with largely geometric forms.
4. Helvetica Now
Helvetica Now is the latest version of the classic Helvetica, redesigned for the digital age. It maintains the font’s Swiss precision while providing a wide range of widths and weights for modern usability.
5. Droid Serif
Droid Serif is a serif typeface with a contemporary appearance and wide glyph coverage. It’s optimized for legibility on digital displays.
6. Tahoma
Tahoma is a humanist sans-serif typeface, popular for on-screen use due to its sturdy letterforms and high readability at small sizes.
7. Times New Roman
Times New Roman is a traditional serif typeface that’s been widely used in print. Known for its economy of space and outstanding legibility, it’s a standard in many contexts.
8. The Seasons
The Seasons is typically used for display, this decorative font has a hand-drawn, whimsical style. It’s often used in themed or creative work due to its unique, artistic quality.
9. Antic
Antic is a modern, sans-serif font with a slightly condensed and quirky style, which makes it stand out in both headlines and body copy.
10. Avenir
Avenir is a geometric sans-serif typeface that combines a classical sense of harmony and proportion with a modern aesthetic. It’s widely used for both text and display compositions.
Conclusion
I hope you found this guide covering the best paragraph fonts in Canva, useful! Be sure to check out our blog for more article covering the essential tips, tricks, and advice for Canva! Also, if you haven’t already tried CanvaPro, you can try it for free for 30 days!