Choosing the best email signature fonts
9 April 2022
0 min read
Every element of an email signature’s design is important. However, getting the design right can be difficult. One element that can easily ruin the design of an email signature is the font – not only the style of font you use but the type of font.
It’s essential to be careful with the types of email signature fonts you use. Believe it or not, using specific fonts in an email signature can break it. That’s because some fonts aren’t compatible with all devices and end up reverting to a default font.
Using web safe fonts for email signature designs
Using a web safe font in an email signature will almost always guarantee the font appears on the recipient’s end as intended. These are also known as “sans serif fonts” as they’re commonly used for digital channels. They’re easy to read and aren’t overly decorative.
A web safe font is one that’s installed on almost every Windows and Mac device by default. They’re available for display on common web browsers like Chrome, Firefox, and Microsoft Edge, as well as standard operating systems like Windows, iOS, macOS, and Android.
If you use it in an email signature, it will look the same on the recipient’s end.
So which is the best font for an email signature? We’ve gone to the trouble of putting together a list of recommended web safe fonts you can use in email signatures:
Arial
Arial Black
Calibri
Courier New
Georgia
Helvetica
Lucida
Tahoma
Times New Roman
Trebuchet
Verdana
Using custom fonts in email signatures
Custom fonts, like web fonts created specifically for a company, can be used in email signatures. However, as a custom font is most likely not installed on an external recipient’s device, the font might not show correctly on your email signature.
The same is also true if you decide to use Google Fonts. The email signature font text will fall back to a font that’s available on the recipient’s side.
It’s possible to set the default fallback font to one of your choosing, but you’ll need good HTML coding knowledge.
Other reasons to avoid using custom fonts include the following:
Difficult to read. Non-web safe fonts will make your email signature template often illegible. If the email signature font makes it too difficult for recipients to see the contact information, it can cause frustration.
Negative impact on your brand. Email signatures are an online reflection of your business. It directly correlates to the professionalism of your brand. Using messy email signature fonts makes the template hard to read and negatively affects the recipient.
Email signature font style
Not only does the type of font you use in an email signature matter. The style of the font does too. This means that your email signature font could damage your brand’s reputation.
Using a wacky font in a corporate email signature is not recommended, as this can come across as unprofessional. This also applies to more common font styles that may not be as popular, like cursive. You could believe that you’ve found the best cursive font for your email signature ever, only to have readers think your letters look odds, or worse, spell something entirely different.
Most companies will have brand guidelines that outline the font type you should use for documents and emails. This will often be a web safe font, such as those listed above.
Choosing the best font size
We recommend that the email signature font size you use should be between 10px-12px in size. Any more oversized, the email signature will stand out too much in a recipient’s inbox, which becomes too distracting.
For more hints and tips on creating a professional email signature, check out the 17 Email Signature DOs and DON’Ts.
And to start turbo-boosting your email signatures, get yourself a free trial of our email signature software.