Great roundup, I have about half of those, going to download the other half.

Keep of these great roundups

wow fonts really bother me a lot! thanks for the great share

5. Tarjan has to be 5. Trajan

Nice post!!

Wow! I use almost all of those! I am going to try to use something different on my next project.

Where’s the Verdana love? Guess I’m the only fan. Cool post and I would have to say very accurate.

The most not be professional web designers without Arial or Verdana on the list.

The less “Bickham” font that exists in the world, the better.

You do realize “professional” is spelled incorrectly in your article image, right? There’s only one f.

Thanks for the list, these fonts look great!

why arial is not included? great post by the way

Nice information and attractively presented!

Excellent list ! It really proves that classic, finely crafted fonts can’t get out of fashion.

wow, I love how you have links to download/install all those fonts………. ummmm…ya?

Just one curious quick question, how can we buy professional fonts in bulk, I saw couple of fonts selling website, they are selling them individually. It will be financial disaster if we have to fork all the money for each individual font. Any idea?

Where’s Comic Sans MS? I see that EVERYWHERE. It’s like, how do we look cool? Use Comic Sans MS.

Except it isn’t cool. It isn’t cool at all.

Thanks for the nice collection.

I use most of those fonts but I think DIN FF should be added and Myriad is seriously overused these days; I don’t think it looks very professional anymore.

Wow this is truly amazing! It’s absolutely fantastic and very interesting! Thanks for sharing!

Escoofield –
http://alotofit.com

Have Fun!

Are they listed in order of popularity? I imagine so, but it should have been stated. Also, I note you have included a whopping 13 sans serifs, 1 in between (Optima – my favorite), only six with serifs, of which one (Trajan) has only upper case, and one in another style – Bickham – of which the less said, the better. There are, in my opinion, too many sans serifs here; Frutiger, Interstate and Gotham are boring, while Franklin is useful but boring. Eurostyle is passé, and I dislike Rockwell on principle. The rest are remarkably similar. I think more serifs that are imaginative but businesslike are needed to make this a truly useful list. ITC Galliard and ITC Tiepolo are pleasing to the eye, and Goudy Old Style has its place. Something with an even lower x-height as well would tickle my eye. How can there be no serious Italic? – Bembo doesn’t count. And finally, there should be at least one good period font – my longtime favorite is the streamlined Sprint.

@Eureka:

Professional designers don’t use Comic Sans. Amateurs might.

My new favorite font is Georgia.

STUMBLED!

I’m a verdana lover myself, nice list.

I love typography, a font is a story. Thank for share!

Hey great list. There is so many bad fonts out the it can get very confusing, these are nice fonts and as always I read the comment for more handy tips

Myriad made the list because of lazy designers using the Adobe default.

I miss the 70’s and letraset…

@kuyuri

see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arial#Criticism.2FSimilar_fonts for info on arial.
It’s the bastard child of Helvetica.

I love avenir. Didn’t know it was this popular. Maybe I’m not a professional.

At the risk of sounding like a killjoy, I believe it’s important to be aware that:

Having “all”, “most” or even “half” of these typefaces won’t make you a ‘professional’.

Without an understanding of the basics of typography and experience you will be doing a disservice to both your design and whichever typeface you employ.

Typefaces are tools and, like any tool, the outcome (harmonious or discordant) is a signifier of the user’s proficiency and ability.

My advice is to do your research on the examples above, find out what medium they’re suited to, pick one sans and one serif from the above list and PRACTICE.

Michael Beirut (of Pentagram and the “Helvetica” film fame)wrote an article in Design Observer touching on this very subject where he recounts working for Massimo Vignelli after he finished his studies. I suggest you look it up.

Georgia is nice enough, but “new favourite font” (you mean typeface) is about as “fan-boy” (-girl) as you can get….
And, for the record: Connare’s Comic Sans is fine PROVIDED it’s used where it was designed to be used – in comics / graphical representations of comics. And for that reason only. Todd McFarlane’s admitted to using it.

To sum up all of the above:
Context is key.

Completely breath of what typography has to offer. This fonts teach about every are a font library should have.

Great list. Never heard of Avenir before today.

Thanks for posting this nice list..

Where’s verdana?

Arial is pretty much the Microsoft version of Helvetica only not as good. There is a good documentary film by Gary Hustwit about the no. 1 font in this list. It’s called ‘Helvetica.’

http://www.helveticafilm.com/

I’m a long-term professional designer, and while I have most if not all of these fonts in my collection I never use them. Why? Because I don’t like them. As you say, they’re overused, and not at all typographically elegant or suitable for most clients’ needs.

Typefaces are, to me, one of the joys of design – matching the brief with appropriate (or unexpected) visual style, and the font used is very much a part of the process.

I do however admit to a guilty secret – I’ve been using Calibri for body text quite a lot recently . . .

Good post, i love avantgarde

This is a nice assortment, however, it would be nice to know where to get them for free.

yer english sucks… what a waste of time this post was. No really, thanks! It makes such a difference.

I guess I’m not a professional. I use Comic Sans most of the time. I have written 13 books using it. My website has had 106,000 hits just to look at my Comic Sans poetry, or maybe it’s my illustrations.

i hope that we can all take it easy with Trajan. I really like that font and it is getting a little over used.

i hope it doesn’t become the next papyrus

the new hero of fresh types is for sure the DIN. all the upper listed types i had also learned in my design school which was 1993…

this list is not up to date…

This list is totally lame. How did you quantify this, all you said is “We spent last whole week reviewing dozens of font reservoirs and typography articles about fonts usability and popularity.” Where are the examples of their use throughout the web? This is just a roundup of fonts people use – no examples, no discussion. Puh-lease.

O, and Bickham script? Really? I mean… really???

Good article

Guilty!

Good

Nice list.

Thank you.

I think FF DIN should also be there.

Awesome list… very helpful for us designers! Thanks for posting!

This is not serious, man!. Where are Garamond, Univers, Times, Caslon, Clarendon? I mean, the all time classics.

How did I know it would have Trajan?

Good. I like It. Tanks everybody

I think you’re forgetting the mighty snowcaps chaps

about 50% accurate…not bad, but could be more accurate.
A pro

sorry to harp on this. my Emcyclopaedia of Tye Faces (ISBN 1-84188-139-2) lists most of these alphabets complete. type originators gave permission to show.

i like these kind of blogs who related with designers, because me too.

Suraish Patel
http://www.submyt.com

Yep use most of those on a regular basis, Gotham has become the main font where I work.

@Freddywang
this might help:
http://www.adobe.com/education/products/fontfolioeducationessentials/

I’ve been a professional designer for 24 years, and honestly, I’ve never used several of these. In fact, I intentionally avoid a few of them. One of the primary things that has plagued web design since its inception is horrible typography. I’m unsure if posts like this one help to improve or erode web designers’ understanding of good typography.

The idea that there are 21 most used fonts which represent good design on the web is a bit of an odd concept. Type is designed with very specific characteristics in mind for each typeface, therefore, each and every company, person, product, or service may be best represented by different typefaces. The fact that there are tens of thousands of typefaces is testament to this fact.

I encourage designers to explore and use many typefaces outside of the 21 listed here. Of course, I have my favorites as well, some of which are listed here. Helvetica, Trajan, Franklin, Gotham and various incarnations of Bodoni rank high on my list. That said, I would never use them simply because they are among my favorites. I only use them when their character perfectly fits the job.

The good old Verdana and Arial are missing.
I can’t think a webpage without a Verdana.
(Yeah Im a little bit Verdana fan)

People: web fonts are missing from this list, because we’re talking about design – not web typography. That is different, and has technical limitations (unfortunately, limited to what is pre-installed on Windows for the most part).

Verdana is only useful for screen display. Arial is a pale imitation of Helvetica. My father printed a whole book in Verdana, which really hurts to read in print. They simply don’t belong on a designer’s list because, in reality, they’re not that well made.

Look to Adobe (with excellent OpenType fonts), Monotype, House, T26 for great fonts. My current fave: Cacelia.

Very good post

fantastic list, thanks! its hard to find classic, well-rounded fonts for print use. my current favourite is Tw Cen MT, but i’ll sure be using some more of these now

Great source of fonts.
Check out http://www.franklyfranklin.co.uk/2009/yet-another-font-resource-post/

great post!

Like Kelly said, I’ve avoided most of these in my 20-plus years. Perhaps post should have read “21 most [over]used fonts…”

Muchas Gracias por las fuentes, me van a ser de gran ayuda en mi diseños

Yeah, I’m a big avant garde fan too.

What is life really like for soldiers serving on the front line in Afghanistan? ,

It’s cool, thanks

ohh yes very nice.I used http://www.ucretsiztarot.com and http://www.kompozisyonornekleri.com thank you for fonts

Great post. I use most of these fonts, often.

What I find interesting is that most of the readers didn’t really READ the post. These fonts are 21 fonts used by professional designers. He didn’t say the ONLY fonts. There are other fonts used, and sometimes often.

Personally, I think Verdana (as stated by another commentor) isn’t a great font. The letters don’t flow as easily and the kerning pairs aren’t always perfect. A great font/typeface will be designed so that the kerning pairs are almost perfect and require minimal adjusting. Also, a great font will be easy on the eye… easy to read… something you don’t have to really THINK about.

Thanks for the post.

yes nice post !!! Thanks admin

nice informations thanks all !!

nice informations thanks all !!

nice post .. thanks admin

thank you all !!! nice info

wow great list, I love to create pictures with typography in my spare time. thanks for sharing

Periodic Table of Typefaces » Lone Gunman

great fonts , thank

I used a lot of these fonts, does that make me a professional?

awesome list of fonts

I have all of these fonts, and count them as my favorites as well!

Good roundup.

Great article!

Useful