10 Popular Newspaper Fonts and Where to Use Them

Times New Roman

One of the most successful fonts of all time, Times New Roman was designed for the Times of London newspaper. Even though it has a lot of old style characteristics, it is still highly legible and is widely used in books, magazines, reports, professional use and, of course, in newspapers. 

Its shape is narrower than most other fonts, even when bolded, so it’s perfect for newspapers that want to fit more text on a single line. Due to its popularity, Time New Roman has become the default font for many platforms and professions. However, thanks to its ubiquity, it can come off as lacking character. In spite of that, Times New Roman is still a popular choice and also has one of the largest ranges of characters for international and mathematics printing. For a safe and professional choice, Times News Roman could be the one for you. 

Helvetica

Helvetica is another popular choice for newspapers as it’s a very strong font. It’s German and Swiss-inspired and has multiple weights, styles, and sizes with related and matching designs. Helvetica has a dense and solid appearance because of the large x-height and tight space between the characters. It’s easy to read because the letters are so close together and can be read from far away. 

Helvetica offers 36 different styles like Helvetica Light, BMW Helvetica, Helvetica Rounded, etc. It also supports the most languages including Latin, Cyrillic, Hebrew, Greek, Japanese, Korean, Hindi, Urdu, Khmer and Vietnamese alphabets. This font is ideal for large newspaper headline fonts, newspaper title fonts, or even for lengthier paragraphs.

Poynter

A study done by Ascender Corp. found that 36 out of 97 leading newspapers used Poynter as their main font. It was designed specifically for newspaper printing in small sizes and for the narrow columns. Poynter is a serif typeface which means that it has extra strokes on the ends of the letterform. These types of fonts are usually used for copy that wants to evoke feelings of tradition, history, and honesty. The Poynter font also comes in 12 styles, with plenty of currency symbols, numerals, and punctuation marks that increase its legibility.

Franklin Gothic

Franklin Gothic is a san-serif typeface that gives a modern look to your newspaper. The word ‘Gothic’ was used to describe fonts that are sans-serif in the past but is rarely used now. Due to its fuller and bold look, it’s most often found as a newspaper headline font or on advertisements. Franklin Gothic is less suitable for longer text because it’s extra bolded and doesn’t save space. It easily reminds readers of a classic newspaper look so it’s used even for digital newspapers now. The heavier stroke weight gives it personality and style and stands out among the rest of the sans serif typefaces. As a result, words are wider and very legible even on a small screen or as a smaller font size.

Playfair Display

Playfair Display is an open source transitional serif font, meaning it is available free for personal and commercial use. Similar to Franklin Gothic, it’s more suited for headlines and titles because of its delicate stroke and beautiful italic style. It gives off a handwritten feel but is still legible enough for quick reading in headlines. Because of the high contrast strokes, readability is lower when the font is used at smaller sizes. Transitional fonts are characterized by a larger x-height, more contrast between the thick and thin strokes, and wide and bracketed serifs with flat bases. These fonts usually have vertical stress meaning that there is more pressure on the vertical access and weight is on the horizontal axis. This shows up on lettering as the verticals of the letters are thick and the horizontals are thinner. It is often paired with Georgia, Lato, or Josefin Sans for editorial purposes.

Courier New

Originally designed for IBM as a typewriter face, Courier New is now also used in magazines and newspapers that focus on more industrial topics. The inspiration behind its design came from the typewriter fonts used for technical documentation. 

Fun fact: it’s often used in computer programming because it has larger punctuation marks, sans-serif options, and features that increase its legibility on screens. As a monospaced font, Courier is useful when columns of characters need to be aligned consistently. Compared to its predecessor, Courier, Courier New is more legible with smoother edges and a higher line space.

Century Old Style

Known for its readability, the Century Old Style is a serif font with a large x-height and letters that are all open form. It’s often paired with ITC Johnston for use in newspapers. Century Old Style is one of the few fonts that is ideal as a newspaper font for both the headline and body. It’s offered in two different styles—regular and bold with an italics version for each. Due to its high legibility, the U.S. Supreme Court requires that all briefs are presented in fonts from the Century family. If you’re looking for a font that makes a statement but is still highly readable, Century Old Style may be the one for you.

Utopia

Utopia reminds readers of classic newspaper fonts such as Century, Walbaum, and Baskerville but with a simpler, more contemporary look. It’s offered in four different sizes, four weights, small caps, and other styles. Utopia is often used in newspapers and other formal editorial copy. The clean look comes from the larger x-height, clean joins between characters, vertical stress, and a distinct stroke contrast. In particular, the Expert Collection from the Utopia typeface is more prevalent in advertising, newspaper publishing, and other corporate uses. The Expert Collection is a new release that has more than two ligatures, weights, small capitals, and optical variants. Because this font has many different styles and extra bold options for headlines, Utopia can be used for newspaper title fonts and body content as well. Utopia pairs well with Larsseit because it is a fairly neutral sans-serif typeface that doesn’t overpower Utopia’s simple design.

Nimrod

Designed specifically for the newspaper industry, Nimrod is an extremely versatile font that is definitely one of the best newspaper fonts. It’s very legible even in small sizes and is able to withstand the degradation of newspaper production and printing. Nimrod comes in 11 different style and family package options. Similar to other fonts that work well at small sizes, it has a large x-height, strong serifs, and is not overly ornate but still has character in its design. The Guardian, London used Nimrod as its main font from the late 1980s to 1998 until it was replaced by a version of Miller. The Oxford Dictionary and Canadian daily newspaper “The Globe and Mail” also use Nimrod as their main font. Nimrod’s overall look is very similar to Plantin and has similar shapes to Century Schoolbook.

Spectral

A new font from a French digital type design agency, Spectral is used mainly for design professionals that want to publish for luxury, media, and retail type purposes. It’s a serif font with seven weights in roman and italic and offers small caps. It’s quickly becoming a favorite in digital newspaper publishing because of its efficient design that can fit a lot of long form text on screens but still maintain its readability. It was commissioned to be used for Google Docs and Sheets so is ideal for on-screen performance. If you’re looking for a new free font to try out for your digital publications, Spectral is offered by Google Fonts as an open-source font. The design features substantial, triangular serifs and is best matched with Source Sans Pro.