Best Fonts for Flyers: Combining Impact and Readability

Flyers are a quick and effective way to grab people’s attention, making them ideal for mass distribution of information about products, services, awareness campaigns, and events.

Since flyers need to deliver information at a glance, choosing the right font plays a critical role in flyer design. Good typography enhances readability and strengthens both your design and message.

This guide shares some of the best fonts for flyers and the general rules for pairing them to establish visual hierarchy. We include fonts from different styles, including serif, sans serif, and script, to ensure you can pick something that reflects your brand personality and tone.

Best Serif Fonts for Flyers

Serif fonts have little “feet” or small decorative strokes that mark the ends of each letter. These “feet” or “serifs” add a touch of elegance and formality to the design and make text easier to read, especially when a small font size is used.

These fonts are ideal for business flyers and other printed materials that have to convey professionalism, authority, and trustworthiness.

Bodoni

This 18th-century serif font is characterized by its high contrast between thick and thin strokes, thin hairline serifs, and vertical stress, making it suitable for headings.

Bodoni is considered a display font, meaning it looks excellent for headlines, logos, and other design elements that need to deliver a strong visual impact. However, it is unsuitable for long blocks of text because of the extreme contrast between thick and thin strokes, which may overwhelm readers.

The bold and dramatic appearance of Bodoni suits brands with high-fashion aesthetics and elegant vibes.

Playfair

Playfair is another popular serif font for flyers that combines formality and elegance, thanks to its high-contrast strokes, delicate curves, and modern look.

Also categorized as a display font, Playfair is often used for headlines, branding elements, and main points of flyers. But due to its high-contrast strokes, it is difficult to read in small sizes.

This serif font suits flyers that need to convey a sophisticated and classic style.

Lora

Lora is a serif font that can be used both in headings and body text, thanks to its balanced and contemporary letterforms that have brush-style, calligraphic roots.

This font is suitable for flyer headlines and other large-sized text, as well as for body text and other long-form content that requires excellent readability.

Lora is an excellent choice for flyer designs that blend classic elegance and modern readability.

Baskerville

Baskerville is another versatile serif font that you can use for headlines, titles, brand elements, and body text. It is characterized by thick and thin strokes, complemented by sharper and more tapered “feet,” which improve legibility.

This font also features a more vertical axis, or the imaginary line running from the top to the bottom of a letter, making it more legible and elegant than earlier old-style typefaces.

Baskerville suits flyers that need to convey timeless and professional aesthetics.

Merriweather

Although Merriweather is often used for digital screens because of its high readability, it’s also suitable for flyers and other printed promotional materials.

The font is characterized by slightly condensed letterforms, sturdy serifs, and a substantial x-height, which is the height of the lowercase “x.” This measurement is a critical factor in legibility, as a taller x-height improves readability, especially at smaller sizes.

Merriweather is a great option if you’re looking for a modern, clean, and neutral look.

Bree Serif

Bree Serif is a charming, friendly, and energetic font that features thick, robust strokes with a handwriting feel, making it suitable for headlines, logos, and other display uses. However, the same characteristics make it a less ideal choice for small body text.

This font’s distinct and energetic personality makes it ideal for modern creative designs.

Garamond

Garamond is one of the oldest fonts, dating back to the 16th century, when it was often used for historical texts, books, and manuals. Nowadays, its elegant, traditional, and neutral style makes it ideal for flyers and other printed marketing materials.

The font’s clear and sharp edges contribute to its excellent readability and strong impact, making it suitable for headlines, titles, and branding elements. Nevertheless, it still looks good when used in body text, thanks to its organic strokes and structures.

Garamond’s organic structure, which mimics handwriting with pens, complements flyer designs and other print projects that need to convey traditional aesthetics.

Best Sans-Serif Fonts for Flyers

Sans-serif fonts are the opposite of serif fonts — they lack “feet” or decorative strokes at the ends of letters. With their clean and simple lines, they lend a modern, minimalist look to printed projects.

Although they have been around for decades, these fonts exude a modern vibe.

Helvetica

If there is one word that best describes Helvetica, it would be “neutral.” This neutrality is one of the reasons why it is a popular choice for headlines, branding, logos, large-format signage, and small printed marketing materials.

Helvetica is the go-to font for flyer designs where quick comprehension is the top priority. However, it may be unsuitable for projects requiring a distinct personality or a strong artistic tone.

This font exudes a timeless, neutral, and no-nonsense vibe.

Roboto

Roboto is a popular sans-serif for digital screens and printed materials, thanks to its open curves, tall x-height, straight-sided uppercase, and geometric structures, all of which contribute to its high legibility.

The font has spacious letterforms that make it ideal for headers, although it also offers excellent readability when used in short paragraphs.

Roboto is suitable for branding, marketing, professional documents, and business flyers where a contemporary and clean aesthetic is desired.

Oswald

Oswald is a modern redesign of classic sans-serif fonts, often used for headlines, titles, branding elements, and calls to action due to its bold, strong, and condensed letterforms with a tall x-height.

The bold and impactful structure of Oswald makes it suitable for projects that require authority and stability, but not for highly traditional or formal printed materials.

Moreover, Oswald is not suitable for large blocks of text, as the condensed letterforms make it hard to read long paragraphs.

Montserrat

Montserrat features letterforms that reflect the bold and catchy 20th-century urban signage in Buenos Aires, Argentina. Today, it is one of the most widely used fonts for printed materials, ranging from business flyers and brochures to creative projects and posters.

The font features a clean and slightly geometric form with wider-than-average characters, offering impressive readability and versatility.

Montserrat is ideal for flyers and other marketing materials that require a contemporary and professional vibe. It works well for headlines, titles, branding elements, and body copy.

Raleway

Raleway is a sans-serif font known for clean, thin-weight lines, making it a perfect choice for headings, titles, and contemporary designs. It’s also easy on the eyes, as the letterforms transition smoothly between lowercase and uppercase.

However, some designers suggest it may not be a great option for large blocks of body text and projects with highly formal or traditional designs.

Trade Gothic

This sans-serif font is known for its versatility, modern feel, sharp lines, and slightly irregular character design that gives it a bit more personality. It is popular in advertising, branding, newspapers, and printed marketing materials that require bold headlines and titles.

Trade Gothic works well for flyers with small quantities of text and typically pairs well with more decorative or extravagant fonts.

Arimo

Introduced by Google Fonts, Arimo is designed to be a substitute for Arial, which is a clean and easy-to-read font, but is often perceived as a “safe” and unoriginal choice due to its ubiquitous presence on computers.

Arimo features clean and simple lines and a width similar to that of Arial’s, giving it a versatile style that works well for business and general design use.

The font is strong enough for headlines on flyers but could also work well for long blocks of text, as it is more condensed than most sans-serif fonts mentioned here on the list.

Museo Sans

Museo Sans is a geometric, low-contrast, highly legible sans-serif font family (or typeface) that is available in condensed and rounded versions. It’s suitable for both headlines and body text.

This typeface is often recommended for flyers where readability is paramount. It has clear and well-spaced letters that make it ideal for readers with dyslexia.

Museo Sans is a good alternative to popular sans-serifs like Helvetica or Proxima Nova.

Best Script Fonts for Flyers

These fonts resemble handwriting and are primarily designed to be beautiful rather than legible or readable. Consequently, use them sparingly in flyers and other promotional materials that need large and catchy headlines, short titles, and logos.

In general, they suit party flyers with a fun and playful vibe, promotional flyers for brands with a romantic and friendly personality, and personalized invitations.

Always pair script fonts with a clean and simple serif or non-serif font for the body copy.

Ballantines Serial

Ballantines Serial features a slightly slanted, vintage-inspired handwriting style with elegant curves and consistent line weights. It suits flyers for formal events and occasions, high-end fashion brands, and upscale hotels and restaurants.

Use Ballantines Serial with thicker weights for headings and titles to make them stand out, and partner with a simple, clean serif or non-serif font.

Allura

Allura features open letters and delicate strokes and loops resembling those used in handwritten calligraphy. The clean and elegant letterforms make the font suitable for both display and advertising, especially involving projects that need to convey sophistication and femininity.

The clean and flowing style of Allura gives excellent readability for headlines and short phrases.

Cookie

Cookie is based on brush calligraphy combined with a 1950s retro charm. It is often used for headlines, personalized messages, branding, and decorative projects that need to evoke the look of vintage American signage.

Compared to many script fonts, it has cleaner and simpler letterforms, so it offers excellent legibility even at smaller sizes.

Pairing Fonts for Flyers

Font selection is not the only factor that improves readability. Font pairing also plays a critical role in establishing visual hierarchy and creating a professional and aesthetically pleasing design.

Here are some font pairing tips to help make your flyers look visually pleasing, impactful, and readable.

Pair two contrasting fonts.
One effective way to create visual hierarchy is to pair fonts with different styles. For example, use a bold sans-serif headline and a clean and simple serif font for the body. Another common approach is to use a decorative font for the title, complemented by a minimalist sans-serif font the body copy.

Focus on readability.
Most people who read flyers expect “fast information,” so always prioritize readability over everything else. Choose clear and legible fonts for your body text, even if the headline uses decorative fonts.

Establish visual hierarchy.
Use font size, weight, and style to guide the reader’s eye to the most essential details.

Reflect the mood of your flyer design.
Fonts have a personality that evokes specific moods and emotions. For instance, elegant script fonts typically suit formal events and feminine styles, while energetic and contemporary sans-serif fonts are ideal for fitness- and sports-related flyers.

Keep it simple.
Use two, at most, three fonts in your flyer design to avoid a cluttered, unprofessional look.

 

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Typography can make or break your flyer design, so pick fonts and font combinations that truly represent your brand, match your visual style, and deliver your message.

If you don’t have a print-ready design yet, you can check out NextDayFlyers’ design templates with pre-made layouts and fonts. Using our templates can help you focus more on content rather than design elements, speeding up the design process.

Our flyer design templates are categorized into various sizes, industries, and styles.