What Fonts To Avoid

When choosing a font for your web design or business, it’s important that you are aware of which fonts to avoid at all costs.

Some fonts are overused, others are trademarked, and some are just unintelligible!

So, to avoid a lot of trouble and embarrassment in the future, we have made this list of all the fonts and typefaces you need to avoid using when designing your websites and logos.

Check them all out down below and if you have already used one of these fonts, then perhaps you need to reconsider your choice.

So, let’s jump into the first font!

Comic Sans MS

Everybody can recognize Comic Sans MS right off the bat – because it is one of the most overused and unappealing typefaces out there!

There are many reasons behind Comic Sans MS’s universal dislike. One could be its overuse in children’s media.

Comic Sans MS is mostly associated with children’s books, websites, and worksheets given to preschoolers so many people associate this font with childish media that is not appealing to them.

However, there are more nuanced reasons behind Comic Sans MS’s dislike. One such reason is how wrong it just looks.

The weight of the font is in all the wrong places and the letters do not fit neatly together like in other fonts, making words look unevenly spaced and ugly – but it’s important to remember that Comic Sans MS was made like this for a reason.

Comic Sans MS was made to be easily readable on old, pixelated computer screens and was far more intelligible than other fonts when read through that media.

As a result, Comic Sans MS was super popular to use because it was the easiest to read – but as computers and technology became more advanced and other fonts became easier to read on these new screens, Comic Sans MS became an outdated and ugly font.

So – it’s best to just let it die a peaceful death and not use it in your web design.

Papyrus

This font was first created way back in the 1980s as a Biblical inspired font and is now one of the many free fonts available through Microsoft.

It generally flew under the radar until a certain film decided to use this font for the title in 2009.

That film was James Cameron’s Avatar – the highest grossing movie of all time (it was overtaken by Avengers Endgame for a while, but a re-release in China brought Avatar back to the top of the table).

So, billions of people became familiar with this font as it was used in all the marketing and logo for the biggest film of the century so far.

Many people pointed out how funny it was that such a huge project opted to use a free Microsoft font and its availability to the public meant that all of a sudden, everyone was using the Papyrus font in their projects.

This led to an over-saturation of the font that has now made it one of the most hated and ridiculed fonts in the graphic design industry.

Even Disney has ditched the font – the James Cameron Avatar franchise now uses a new, original typeface for its associated works.

So if Disney ditched Papyrus because they thought it did more damage than good to their business, then you should do the same too.

Arial

Being a graphic designer means that you get to be as creative as you can – so what are you doing if you just use the most basic font available for your designs?

Businesses and websites need to stand out from one another and if they all use the same boring font, then they will all start to fade into the background.

Arial is one of the most widely used fonts and not in just websites and business, but for official documents like paperwork.

The last thing you want your business to be associated with is boring stuff like that!

With so many different fonts out there that are available for use, you can definitely do better than just using a plain old free font that kids use to do their homework.

Times New Roman

This is another overused, basic font that is available for free so just like with Arial, you should avoid it at all cost.

Times New Roman is mainly used for printed works like books, textbooks and sometimes legal documents which while this gives the font a very professional reputation, it’s not one that your business can benefit from.

Using Times New Roman in websites makes it look like you have not put a lot of thought or care into your design and instead just opted for whatever fonts were free and easily available.

Do you really want your audience and customers to think that you don’t care about your business or work?

As we said earlier, there are so many other fonts out there that you can use for your typography so don’t feel that you are stuck using basic fonts like Times New Roman.

With a bit of research, you will definitely find more than one unique font that you can use instead.

Any Font That’s Unintelligible

Your clients, customers, audience, whoever will be looking at your design will need to be able to read the text and typography clearly.

So, don’t go for any fancy fonts that bunch the characters up or space them too far apart so it’s difficult to read.

This is a huge mistake that a lot of graphic designers make and then they end up losing business because the typography is unintelligible.

You can still use fun fonts that are a little creative, but make sure that what you are trying to get across does so.

It’s better to use a plainer text for large chunks of writing and keep the more unique fonts for logos and headings, but each case is different.

It’s also worth remembering that some fonts are better suited for those with dyslexia so you may want to find a font that is accessible to all to widen your audience even further.

Just remember to ask someone else to read your typography out loud to you so you can see if it’s easy to read. Then, you know that you’re good to go.