Five Great Typekit Font Pairings

I’m always looking for a little design inspiration and my latest obsession fascination is with the art of typography.

I’m loving on Tyepkit due to the huge variety of available fonts and the likelihood of being able to match my typeface choices to a company’s logo or printed collateral when designing their website.

There a jillion articles out there on how to create great font pairings, but I couldn’t find much dedicated specifically to Typekit font pairings, so I thought I’d do my own review. So…

My favorite font pairings with Typekit

Myriad Pro paired with Minion Pro

If you’re new to pairing fonts, a good rule of thumb is to mix and match within the same font foundry (those cool people who design fonts). The assumption is you’re more likely to find similar and/or complimentary design characteristics.

This example is a popular pairing of two Adobe fonts: Myriad Pro (sans-serif) and Minion Pro (serif). The anatomy of each is similar enough that it just produces a nice visual harmony. With eighteen different weights and styles* between them, there are myriad possibilities. Aren’t I punny?

* Weights (i.e. light, semi-bold, black)
* Styles (i.e. regular, italic)

Proxima Nova

This font is so sexy, it can stand alone!

There are fourteen different weights and styles available from Typekit. You can also add Proxima Nova SC OSF Condensed to the mix for an additional fourteen weights and styles. Pair any of those together, and you’re bound to look good!

LFT Etica Web paired with Adelle

LFT Etica Web and Adelle (Hello?) are typographic jewels created by TypeTogether foundry. In the example below, I’m using LFT Etica for the headlines and Adelle for the body in two weight variations (thin on the first paragraph, regular on the second).

I love the powerful, yet enticing feel of LFT Etica. Contrasting it against the light-weight and friendly Adelle makes for a font pairing that’s personality plus. I want to have these fonts over for dinner!

Excuse me while I go sniff the pages of some books. I’m getting high on typography.

Le Monde Sans STD with Adobe Garamond Pro

Okay, this time we’re pairing two contemporary fonts, Le Monde and Garamond. They even SOUND good together. Both are easily readable at small sizes and keep nice character at large sizes, making them work equally well in the role of headline or body copy.

Cubano Sharp & Nimbus

For the last Typekit font pairing, I give you Cubano Sharp (by Chandler Van De Water) together with Nimbus Sans (by URW++). Cubano is the heavy-weight champion of FONT FUN. It’s perfect for bold headings, but is reasonably readable at smaller sizes as well. Since it is high on character, I’ve paired it with the more neutral and versatile Nimbus Sans, available in a variety of weights and styles, including a condensed version.

A word on how using Typekit fonts impacts your website performance

Before you run off to implement your new font pairings, let me give you a word of caution. I mentioned the variety of weights and styles available for some of these fonts. If you load every single option for a font onto your website, YOU ARE SLOWING DOWN YOUR WEBSITE.

From your font kit within Typekit, make sure you’re only loading those weights and styles you need.