Best Fonts for Brochures: Readability Meets Branding
In an era where consumers are bombarded with thousands of ads every day, your brochure — or any other printed marketing material — must effectively capture and retain their attention with the right design and font selection.
The right font promotes faster reading speed, better comprehension, and enhanced recall, while a poor one reduces readability or even conveys the wrong message.
The ideal fonts (and font pairings) for your brochure will vary depending on your industry, topic, and overarching message. Nevertheless, they should always offer excellent readability and complement your brand’s aesthetic and personality at the same time.
What to look for in fonts?
When selecting fonts for your brochure, there are critical factors that you need to consider.
Offer excellent readability
Brochures are distributed to people who need fast information, which many traditional fonts can accomplish. Many serif fonts (they have small strokes at the end of each letter) and sans serif fonts (they lack extensions attached to the ends of letters) offer excellent readability.
By contrast, decorative fonts — i.e., they mimic hand-lettering or fancy illustrative techniques — are harder to read, especially when you use them in long blocks of text. That is not to say you should avoid them altogether. When you use these fonts correctly and sparingly, they can make your design look interesting and catchy.
Match your brand’s personality
Fonts exude mood and personality, ranging from quirky and friendly to professional, formal, and simple. Thus, your choice should align with your brand’s personality and aesthetic.
Complement your design
Your font choice should complement the overall design of your brochure. The goal is to use one that looks harmonious with the images and other design elements. For example, a rounded typeface may look too much on a design filled with circular shapes.
If you want to learn more about creating an effective brochure design, keep in mind these nine important tips.
10 Readable Fonts Ideal for Brochures
One of the most common misconceptions about traditional font types is that they look flat and unexciting. But this is far from the truth. Many serifs and sans serifs exhibit distinct personality while still offering excellent readability.
These are excellent fonts that can enhance the readability of brochures.
- Didot
- Apparel
- Helvetica
- Calibri
- Raleway
- Cooper Black
- Trajan
- Quicksand
- Verdana
- Proxima Nova
This serif font embodies a personality that is elegant and classic with a touch of modern flair. It also exudes a dramatic and refined appearance created by the high contrast between its thick and thin strokes.
Didot is widely used in the fashion and beauty industries. Versace, Vogue and Harper’s Bazaar use this elegant and timeless font.
Best for: Lifestyle, luxury fashion, entertainment, and editorial designs
Apparel shares some similar functional characteristics with Caslon and Times New Roman fonts, although it has a classier, fresher vibe that makes it an excellent choice for a high-impact design.
Apparel has medium-large x-height, which is the height of the lowercase “x” and the rest of the small letters. This feature makes the font ideal for brand identity designs and brochure headers.
Best for: Creative and high-impact designs
Helvetica is one of the most widely used fonts because of its neutrality, versatility, and legibility. It has a clean, simple, and modern appearance that makes it perfect for printed marketing materials like brochures and flyers.
Because this font does not impose a strong personality or mood, it allows the message of your printed materials to shine. Well-known brands like Muji, American Apparel, and Knoll have built their visual identities around it.
Best for: Design where the content needs to speak for itself without the font interfering with the message
Widely known as the default font for Microsoft Word, Calibri is a sans serif typeface that exudes a warm and friendly feel with its soft, rounded edges. It suits brochures with a modern or professional design.
If clear and professional communication is your top priority, Calibri is a great choice for headers and body text.
Best for: Modern designs and general text
This sans serif font has a clean, simple, and elegant appearance with a touch of modern vibe. Thus, it pairs well with many serif fonts with a traditional feel.
Since Raleway’s release in 1922, it has been a popular choice for display and advertising materials because of its slightly bouncy and informal appearance.
Best for: Luxury brands, stylish designs, fashion-related logos, and branding elements
Cooper Black exudes a playful and friendly vibe, thanks to its rounded and thick strokes and slightly condensed letterforms.
This ultra-bold font became popular in the late 60s and early 70s when the Beach Boys used it as the signature font for their album Pet Sounds. Thus, it is an excellent choice if you want to create a nostalgic feel.
Best for: Brochures promoting concerts and camps; and printed materials with a retro or vintage-inspired design
Trajan closely resembles a Roman serif font with how the thickness of each stroke alternates with each other. This unique feature can make your brochure stand out, especially when used in large texts like headings or branding.
Trajan is the epitome of a classically styled typeface. The font’s design is inspired by the imperial Roman letter forms chiseled into stone, exuding a stoic, classical feel combined with distinct proportions and geometry.
Best for: High-end brands and brochures with historical themes or classical designs
Influenced by the geometric-style sans serifs that were popular during the1920s and 1930s, this font has rounded terminals and friendly overall appearance. It suits brochure designs with a clean and slightly playful vibe.
While Quicksand is an excellent choice for headlines, it is also readable in smaller sizes, making it a versatile option for various design projects.
Best for: Youthful and approachable designs
Although Verdana was originally designed to improve legibility on low-resolution computer screens, it has gained popularity among designers who need a clean, easy-on-the-eyes font that looks good onscreen and offscreen regardless of the text size.
Verdana’s impressive readability lies in the ideal spacing between each character, making it excellent for text-laden brochures.
Best for: School brochures, text-laden printed materials, and corporate branding
This sans serif font is a well-known option among designers who need a minimalist typeface they can use for headings and subheadings. However, this may not always be suitable for the body text because of its geometric and weighty appearance.
Proxima Nova offers a trendy and modern look while maintaining the versatility and cleanliness of long-time favorites like Helvetica and Futura.
Best for: Informational brochures, product-focused prints, and tech brands
Front Pairings for Brochure Designs
So how do you choose the ideal font pairing for your brochure design? Here are some tips to help you pick fonts that support each other and provide a contrast at the same time, creating a unique look and a strong visual impact.
Limit the number of fonts you choose.
For most brochure designs, two fonts are often enough —i.e., one is for the headers, and the other is for the text body. Although you can probably get away using three fonts, more than this and you run the risk of having a cluttered design.
Use two contrasting font types.
For the best font pairing, consider creating some contrast between width, weight, style, or size. For example, you can combine an ultra-thick font with another one that has slightly thinner strokes or pair an ornate typeface with a minimalist font.
Avoid pairing two fonts that are closely similar in style, shape, weight, or width, or belong from the same category (e.g., two serif fonts), as this may result in poor visual hierarchy and flat appearance.
Utilize scale and balance.
Scale and balance play an essential role in font pairing. The goal is to create a visual balance and hierarchy to enhance readability and direct the reader’s eyes towards the information they need to look at first.
Sometimes, two fonts may not look good together at the same point size but pair nicely at contrasting sizes.
Best Practices to Enhance a Brochure’s Readability
Readability should be one of the top priorities when designing brochures or any other printed marketing material. Here are the best practices to ensure the text content is easy on the eyes.
- Create visual hierarchy. For example, you can use large and bold fonts for headlines, and smaller text for subheadings and body copy.
- Avoid overusing bold fonts.
- Use columns to break blocks of text into smaller, easier-to-digest sections.
- Aim for 45-75 characters per line to promote convenient and fast reading speed.
- Use left justified text, a text alignment style where words are aligned along the left margin, creating a straight edge on the left side of the text block and a right side that looks uneven.
Conclusion
Now that you've seen the best fonts to enhance readability in brochures, it's time to start customizing your next print project. NextDayFlyers offers a collection of free brochure templates that are categorized based on sizes, industries, and styles. These design templates also come with bleed and margins to help prevent white edges and cut-off content on the final product.
Once you click your preferred template, you can customize it using our design tool where you can upload your own photo or access millions of high-quality, affordable stock images (licenses start at only $2.5.)