3 days ago, Animoto announced inclusion of 13 new fonts for its ‘Professional +Business’ level users.

Considering the fact that these fonts were “thoughtfully curated” (and by virtue of the fact that Animoto touts over 20 million users in 175 countries; 2017), it’s reasonable to consider that these might become part of some popular font trend. So let’s look at them in some detail.

Ranging from handwritten, typewriter and script-style fonts,to ‘chunky’ and ‘alternative’, they include:

Amatic, Poiret One, Playfair Display, Mali, Kaushan Script,Comfortaa, Abril Fatface, Special Elite, Caveat, Lekton, Holtwood One SC,Waiting for the Sunrise and Reenie Beanie.

(here they are in all their glory)

FAVES

Since I tend towards clean and elegant sans-serif (a bit ‘grotesque’or ‘mixed’), my personal favorites are Comfortaa and Lekton, plus the quirky Mali (check out the fun Mali glyphs in image 2).

• Comfortaa: Designed by Johan Aakerlund. A rounded geometric sans-serif type design intended for large sizes. [download here]
• Lekton: Initially designed in 8 hours by a group of students at ISIA Urbino, Italy. Later refined and expanded with the input of others. Lekton is inspired by Olivetti typewriter typefaces. [download here]
• Mali: Designed by Mila Visuals/ Cadson Demak. A handwritten font. Ideal for logos, quotes, product packaging, header, poster, merchandise, social media and greeting cards. [download here]

+ Find out more about Grotesque (and Neo-Grotesque and Geometric and Mixed) fonts here:
‍https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sans-serif#Grotesque

OUT

I personally find these to be a bit dated, unless you are working on a design project that needs some of their particular ‘mood’:

• Poiret One (‘deco’). Deco is just so… ‘deco’. A better alternative for this day and age would be Above DEMO.
• Special Elite (‘grungy typewriter’). I personally prefer more ‘vintage typesetting’ for 2019 design (like… Tradesmith).
• Waiting for the Sunrise and Amatic (‘basic grungy script’). Better to just go all-out grunge: The Chemical Parade.

IN

Of the rest, Playfair Display is worth mentioning as an ‘old’serif font in the year 2019. It’s well suited for titling and headlines. It has an extra large x-height and short descenders.
It’s the kind of serif font that can look striking in combination with a clean sans-serif. But, personally, I would rather use a ‘semi serif’ like Colus.

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GOOD VS GREAT

Remember that these 13 fonts have been selected specifically for video projects, and they aim to satisfy the needs of an ‘average audience’ (and a particular business model) so there is a limitation in their range of expression. Nevertheless, it’s always useful to take a deeper dive into the details, to better inform our own design decisions.

As always, if you are using fonts on video, remember the basic rules:

• Make the text large enough to view on tiny mobile screens.
• Choose a font that matches your brand.
• Use 2 types of fonts as titles and subtitles,for deeper messaging.
• Keep font size consistent throughout your video.
• Keep the text short (to speed up the pace ofyour video and keep it all more engaging).

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If you are looking for a designer who loves fonts, please get in touch. Let's make something special.

-Sandro Alberti
Design

creative@sandroalberti.design

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