In the early days of the internet, web designers were limited to 16 font family options that came preinstalled on Windows and Mac operating systems. Yet from its humble beginnings, web fonts have come a long way over the years.

With valuable resources like Google Fonts and Adobe Typekit, it’s never been easier for web designers to incorporate different font options into their designs.

For this article, we reached out to some of the web’s best graphic designers and creative minds. We wanted to know what some of their favorite fonts were. Here are their answers.

Alison Lebofsky – Perspektiiv Design Co.

“Courier New – The Courier Typeface that was originally designed in 1955 for IBM is making a comeback, and I am so thrilled about it. This monospaced slab serif typeface is informational and trustworthy with it’s vintage tech appeal. When designed for IBM they decided not to copyright it, so the font can be found on most computers and DIY website applications for your brand. Used best as a body copy font, descriptor font, or dropdown menu font – this typeface will add an informative retro vibe to any brand.

Oswald – The Oswald Typeface, specifically in all capital letters, is a personal favorite I recommend for website headers or subheaders. This grid based font creates a bold and memorable appeal for brands looking to make a statement. Oswald can be used in a large or small format to provide user experience direction to any brand. This font is available on both Google Fonts and Adobe Typekit, making it an easy and beneficial addition to your website!

Raleway – Raleway is one of my favorite sans-serif web fonts. It has a bit more personality than a classic sans-serif typeface like Arial or Verdana, with its geometric styled lettering. The Raleway Font Family has 9 weights, making this a great option for bold headers or subheaders, as well as legible but personable body copy font. This font is available on both Google Fonts, and Adobe Typekit – which means you can use this font easily for DIY websites like Squarespace and WordPress. I suggest Raleway to my clients looking for a unique and modern web safe font for their brand.

Bitter – Bitter is one of my go-to recommendations for clients looking to add a contemporary and approachable feeling “serif” to their brand. Slab Serif fonts were originally created in the 19th century for easy to read display text and online advertisements. Since then, they have been used widely for e-books, apps, and more. This specific slab serif font has a great balance of curves and hard lines – creating a confident yet welcoming appeal. Bitter is very versatile and can be used as a header, sub-header, or body copy font. It pairs well with simple sans-serifs like Montserrat or Gotham. This font is available on both Google Fonts, and Adobe Typekit.”

Cheryl Marchese – Studio 325

“I love a modern, sans-serif typeface that is easy to read. Roboto Sans is one of my favorites as it stands tall and slender and has a nice feel to it. My other favorite, more playful sans-serif is Raleway. It has a unique touch to it and is very versatile. As for a serif font, my “go-to” is Playfair Display. This font speaks for itself. The kerning and the “strength” of the typeface is classic with a bit more style. I actually (almost never) use italic fonts, but this one does work well as an italic font.”

Jacob Cass – Just Creative

“I may be a little biased as this is my own brands’s font, but I would have to say Proxima Nova is a personal favorite. It’s geometric but with a humanistic feel – the perfect balance between neutrality and modernity, without the lack of emotion commonly found in other sans-serifs such as Helvetica.”

Laura Kuhn – Midnight Boheme

“As a graphic designer, I have font favorites that I find reliable and appealing such as Gin, both Regular and Lined, which is one of the best commercial fonts to convey strong, solid lettering with a nod to hipster flair. Thirsty Soft is a beautiful script font family with various weights that captures a more feminine, flirtatious flow of letters that is clear and legible in all sizes. Royal Signage offers elegant capitalized letters full of flourishes alongside its small caps of perfectly shaped serifs. Montserrat is a simplistic typeface full of various weights which work beautifully for web and print to convey a non-traditional yet business-friendly sans-serif font.

Honorable mentions include Herchey Script to capture the retro spirit, Aprille for a serif font filled with surprising glyphwork that literally links the letters depending on the combination in each word, and Anodyne, an all-caps grunge font that offers various degrees of grunge in the alphabet, so your lettering does not appear repetitive.

Fonts are the voice graphic designers use to relay their client’s message. Therefore, choose wisely.”

Elle Phillips – Red Couch Creative, Inc.

“I can easily point out my two favorite fonts for this year… and as any good designer should have, one is serif and one is sans-serif.

I discovered the Montserrat typeface about a year ago when I was looking for an update to my company’s logo font. The second I saw it I knew that was it… the cleanliness of the characters, roundness of the “O” and the short legs with a tall upper body on capitalized letters hooked me in. After incorporating it into my logo and discovering the vast amount of weights available, it was immediately incorporated into the website and all of my branding. It’s still my top go-to font for any design that requires a clean, corporate or modern design. It’s one of those fonts that just works.

Moving to a completely different look and feel, Haboro became an accidental favorite when it went on sale and was included with a bundle of other fonts. With an exceptional amount of weights and variations, it can be used in just about any type of project and still remain versatile. I love the uniqueness of the serifs on this one… the tight curl at the top of the c and r to the unique curves in the lowercase q and uppercase G, and the numbers are classic, curvy and sexy. I’ve used this font in books as body text due to its smooth readability, as well as thick headlines that require a classic or vintage feel. Overall, it’s a fun font to play with, and one I just keep coming back to.”