How you say something can be just as important as what you say. Spoken voices can range from bubbly and enthusiastic to serene and calming. When it comes to conveying a message online with written words, typography plays a big role in your brand’s voice.
This guide covers the importance of typography and introduces the top 13 typography tools you can use to increase the visual impact of the work you create with Wix Studio's design features.
Why is typography important?
Typography is an essential element of graphic design. It affects whether people can read your messaging and has the power to convey a specific tone or sentiment. What’s more, typography can attract people to a brand, product or website if it appears professional and aesthetically pleasing.
Some people confuse typography with font selection, but typography is more than that. Typography is an essential element of good website design that includes typefaces as well as elements like legibility, hierarchy, white space and alignment.
Here are the best typography for graphic designers and web developers today, including design software, font editors and online tools to help you play around and find typography inspiration. (For even more inspiration, check out the latest typography trends and this piece on expressive typography.)
Top 13 typography tools
01. Adobe InDesign
Adobe InDesign is a powerful publishing and layout software with a comprehensive set of typography features for print and digital use. It allows for streamlined creation with design templates, has thousands of fonts available and offers easy collaboration. Not to mention, you can configure typesetting elements, such as kerning and tracking, to ensure every detail is the way you want.
Price: Starts at $22.99/month
Best for: Brands already using Adobe Suite
02. Adobe Illustrator
Adobe Illustrator is a vector graphics software often used to create compelling brand assets, such as logos and layouts, as well as typography. Illustrator allows for precision typeface editing, custom font design and using hand lettering on digital projects. The Retype typography AI tool is especially useful, letting you upload an image, identify the font, find the closest match in Adobe Fonts and edit the text in the image.
Price: Starts at $22.99/month
Best for: Brands that want a precise typography tool that supports vector graphics
03. Affinity Designer
Affinity Designer is a vector graphics software that can be used for illustration and layout design. With Designer, you get a wide range of text tools, including artistic text, text on a path and text shaping. It also comes with a typography panel and OpenType variable fonts, which let you interactively tweak fonts to meet your needs.
Price: Starts at $18.49 one-time payment
Best for: Brands that want a comprehensive typography and layout tool without a subscription
04. CorelDRAW Graphics Suite
CorelDRAW Graphics Suite is an intuitive and professional graphic design solution with typography features, including block shadows, contours and support for OpenType variable fonts. The Graphics Suite also includes Corel Font Manager, which gives you access to over 1,400 Google Font selections.
Price: $269/year or $549 one-time payment for 2024 version
Best for: Entry-level creators looking for a full graphics suite
05. Wix Studio
Wix Studio is a web creation platform built for agencies, enterprises and freelancers building websites at scale, and that includes sites with stunning typography. Remember: typography is more than just the fonts you choose; it’s about making your text visually appealing when it’s laid out and includes the decisions you make about typefaces, line spacing and alignment. Some ways Wix Studio makes your type dreams a reality:
Responsive AI optimizes your type for mobile to ensure that all text and typography elements adapt well to different screen sizes and devices.
Text masks make your copy pop.
Responsive templates put bold typography front and center.
The ability to upload custom fonts, including fonts that work well in non-English languages.
Price: Starts at $19 a month for a basic plan
Best for: Agencies, enterprises and freelancers
06. FontLab
FontLab is a dedicated font editor available for Mac and Windows. With FontLab, you can create new fonts or customize OpenType variable fonts for your digital design projects. It comes with precision editing tools and the ability to make calligraphic lettering by hand.
Price: Starts at $499 one-time payment
Best for: Windows users looking for a professional font editor
07. RoboFont
RoboFont is a modern font editor for Mac that enables glyph drawing and editing. RoboFont is designed to be modular and provides core software that can be expanded through the addition of open-source and commercial extensions. This setup lets you tailor the tool and its features to your needs. Beyond that, Robofont has an active Discord community where you can learn more about typography and how to get the most out of the tool.
Price: $490 for one license (discounts available for students and educators)
Best for: Mac users who want a modular font editor
08. Glyphs
Glyphs is another professional font editor for Mac users that lets you create and customize fonts. With Glyphs, you can design custom typefaces from sketches and turn them into variable fonts. You can also extend Glyphs’ capabilities through free and paid plugins.
Price: $327 one-time payment
Best for: Mac users who want to create variable fonts
09. Typewolf
Typewolf is an excellent one-stop shop for all things typography. At Typewolf, you can find font inspiration, checklists and a database of free fonts. If you’re struggling with the dreaded designer’s block, you can head over to Typewolf’s collection of type-pairing lookbooks to help you find the best combinations based on your industry or desired brand tone.
Price: Free
Best for: Designers who want typography inspiration
10. WhatTheFont
Have you ever seen the perfect font on someone else’s website and couldn’t find the details for yourself? Not to worry. Just check out WhatTheFont. It uses deep learning to identify a font from a graphic or photo and match it to a typeface in its comprehensive collection of over 133,000 options. You can also type in your own text to preview how it will look in the font you discovered.
Price: Free tool; premium font downloads start at $1
Best for: Entry-level creators looking for a font finder
11. FontJoy
While there’s a science to wine pairing, font pairing can sometimes feel like the Wild West. If you’re ready to find the right combination of fonts for your brand, FontJoy is the tool for you. This free online tool automatically generates font pairings with three different fonts based on your desired level of contrast between typefaces. From there, you can tweak and easily see how your choices look together without having to install and test dozens of fonts in your design software.
Price: Free
Best for: Designers looking to streamline font selection
12. Fontpair
Fontpair is a handy tool that’s specifically designed to help you match Google Fonts. You can search for a font that you want to use and then see a variety of pairings for it. If you don’t have a font in mind, you can search through the database and narrow your choices down based on categories like serif, sans serif and handwritten. As an added bonus, Fontpair also has a Chrome browser extension for identifying fonts.
Price: Free
Best for: Creators looking for free font options
13. Modular Scale
When it comes to typography, most people like to think about font selection, letter paths and overall styling. Size may not be the first thing that pops to mind, but it’s important for legibility and aesthetic impact. Modular Scale is a free resource for designers that you can use to easily visualize different font size hierarchies to find the best ratio for your brand and visual assets.
Price: Free
Best for: Web designers looking for help sizing their type
Sign up for Wix Studio to create your next great site today.
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