The one thing that can always spice up your brand is a shiny new typeface! Whether you need a fancy headline or just want to A/B test a new body copy style, our favorite fonts of 2021 can help with almost any project.

The key to working with different font types is finding the “match made in heaven.”

While great brand fonts shouldn’t drive too much attention, bad font pairs stick out like a sore thumb. So perhaps if you love your headline typeface, check out our sans serif favorites to pair it with a beautiful, easy-to-read body copy option.

There are plenty of premium fonts that are totally worth every penny, but there are also some really incredible freebies out there. And it’s great to see designers helping other creatives by providing these beautiful free fonts! So while all of these options are public domain and totally free to use, be sure to take a second and give the creators some major props (and consider donating or buying their premium options)!

And as a sneak preview, we’ve included all of the great, free fonts that pair perfectly with our free design trends email course!

Now for the moment you’ve been waiting for…the best free fonts of 2021! Feel free to scroll the whole list, or use these links to jump to exactly the font type you’re looking for.

• Calligraphy fonts
• Sans Serif fonts
• Serif fonts
• Bold fonts
• Retro fonts

The best free calligraphy fonts

Whether you call ‘em calligraphy fonts, handwriting fonts, or cursive fonts, we’re talking about beautiful scripts that add an air of elegance to your site. These typefaces look professional in a graceful kind of way and class up just about any site or graphic.

Don’t go overboard, however. While they make a great headline font, these delightful typefaces are really best for short phrases. Imagine having to read a whole paragraph of 12 point cursive text on a screen – unless you’ve got a very niche audience that seems into that, your site visitors would probably prefer a serif or sans serif, with one of these beautiful scripts to highlight the important bits!

Mattilda

Playlist

Signpainter Housescript

This is one of the fonts used in our free 2019 Design Trends email course! Sign up here to learn how to create this image.

Variane Script

The best free serif fonts

Every brand needs a go-to basic; a reliable typeface that can be used for just about anything. That’s the power of a good serif – their simplicity is familiar to most (thanks Times New Roman!) which makes a serif font very easy to read, no matter what context. (Assuming the proper leading and kerning, of course.)

With a strong serif font in your back pocket, you’ll never have to wonder what typeface to choose again. Not only can they stand alone, but they pair nicely with other fonts, too. Here are a few of our favorites!

Abril Fatface

Bodoni XT

Fogtwo No5

Oxford

The best free sans serif fonts

While they may look similar to serifs, sans serif fonts can actually create a very different feeling on your website. Serifs have that familiar, old school feeling, whereas sans serif fonts feel stylish and new. They also tend to be a little more trim, which will help give your site a modern, minimalist vibe.

You really can’t go wrong with a sans serif font. They look great alone, they look great in caps lock, and they pair nicely with a wide variety of fonts. (Including serifs!) Here are a few of our favorites if you’re looking for something new.

Bebas Neue

Corbert

Keep Calm

This is one of the fonts used in our free 2019 Design Trends email course! Sign up here to learn how to create this image.

Swansea

The best free retro fonts

Looking for a fun font to jazz up your site? Look no further than these free retro fonts. While they’re definitely not perfect for all use cases, when they are, they can make quite the impact! Just be sure to stick to headlines or short phrases – they’re a pretty bold choice for anything longer than a line or two!

Plus, vintage vibes are making a comeback in this year’s design trends. All of these fonts were used in our 2019 Design Trends course. If you’re interested in learning more, sign up here!

Blanka

Lazer

Mistral and Outage

The best free bold fonts

Last but not least, we’ve got some beautiful bold fonts that are ideal for making a big, loud statement! Sure, you can manually bold most typefaces, but these fonts come ready to shout your message to world, so we deemed them worthy of their own category.

If you’re looking for something with a little (okay, a lot) more weight than your sans serif, check out these free bold fonts.

Alberto

Fredoka

Gilroy

Prequel

Now that you’ve had a look at some of our favorite fonts for 2021, how are you going to use or pair them? Do you have another font you love? Let us know in the comments below!

Next: See the top web design trends!

There are so many web design trends this year that it’s hard to know what exactly is a trend and what’s just a common topic in the design world.

In this article, we’ll cover what the top 13 web design trends are, why you should care about them, and more thought-provoking pieces of advice from other leading designers in the industry.

This post was originally published on January 30, 2018. It last last updated on December 11, 2020.