A beginner’s guide to font categories

Understanding the five broad font categories makes the font finder more useful, because you can quickly judge whether a suggested match is even plausible.

Sans-serif fonts have no decorative strokes at the end of letters. They feel modern and clean and dominate interfaces today — think Inter, Roboto and Montserrat.

Serif fonts carry small lines (serifs) at the ends of strokes. They feel traditional and editorial — think Playfair Display, Merriweather and EB Garamond.

Display fonts are built to be big. They’re expressive, decorative, and often unreadable in body text — think Bebas Neue, Bungee and Lobster.

Handwriting fonts mimic pen and brush lettering — think Pacifico, Dancing Script and Caveat.

Monospace fonts give every character equal width, like a typewriter or code editor — think JetBrains Mono, Fira Code and Space Mono.

Browse each category on the fonts page. When your identification result lands in the wrong category (a handwriting font where you expected a clean sans-serif), treat it as a signal that the match is weak.