Best Serif Fonts in Canva

Canva Templates is reader supported. When you buy through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission. Learn more

---

Great graphic design is powered by great font selection. But picking great fonts is a challenge for most people. Luckily, Canva has made adding great fonts to your designs much easier. In this tutorial, our team of design experts will cover the best Serif fonts in Canva.

What are Serif Fonts?

Serif fonts are traditional typefaces that feature small lines or strokes (known as serifs) attached to the ends of larger strokes in a letter or symbol. Here are some general characteristics of serif fonts:

1. Traditional Feel: Serif fonts have been around for centuries, making them often associated with tradition, authority, and professionalism. They’re frequently used in formal settings, such as legal documents, academic papers, and established news outlets.
2. Enhanced Readability: The serifs on these fonts are believed to guide the reader’s eye along the line of text, enhancing readability, particularly in printed works. This makes serif fonts a popular choice for long blocks of text.
3. Serif Styles: There are different styles of serif fonts. Old Style serifs have a small difference between thick and thin strokes, while Transitional and Modern serifs have a significant contrast between these strokes. Slab Serifs, or Egyptian, have thick, block-like serifs.
4. Elegant and Sophisticated: Serif fonts are often perceived as elegant and sophisticated due to their intricate detailing. They’re a common choice for luxury brands or formal invitations.
5. Variety: There’s a wide variety of serif fonts available, each with its unique characteristics. Some serif fonts, like Times New Roman or Garamond, are known for their classic, timeless appeal, while others, like Rockwell, have a more modern, bold aesthetic.
6. Hierarchy and Emphasis: The diversity within serif typefaces allows for creating a clear hierarchy and emphasis in the text, using various font weights and styles.
7. Print and Web: While they’ve traditionally been used more for print than web, the improvement in screen resolutions has led to an increase in the use of serif fonts in digital design.

Best Serif Fonts in Canva

1. Noto Serif

Noto Serif is a classic, highly-readable serif typeface developed by Google. Its goal is to support all languages with a harmonious look and feel, hence the name ‘Noto’ which is short for ‘no tofu’, referring to the blank boxes that appear when a computer doesn’t support a particular character.

2. Droid Serif

Droid Serif is a contemporary serif typeface family designed for comfortable reading on screen. With a tall x-height and robust serifs, Droid Serif is particularly legible even at small sizes.

3. Noto Serif Hebrew Bold

This is the bold variant of Noto Serif for the Hebrew alphabet. As part of Google’s Noto project, it offers a harmonious and universal typographic design for Hebrew scripts.

4. Literata

Literata is a serif typeface custom designed for Google Play Books. It has a unique, slightly condensed structure and features varying stroke widths, giving it a gentle, flowing rhythm that’s ideal for long texts.

5. PT Serif

PT Serif is a universal type family designed for use together with PT Sans released earlier. The family includes styles for both Western and Eastern European languages, as well as Old Church Slavonic ligatures and types of numerals.

6. South Korea Serif

South Korea Serif is an elegant, traditional serif font that incorporates subtle Asian design elements. Its refined and sophisticated appearance makes it ideal for formal documents, book covers, or headlines.

7. Libre Baskerville

Libre Baskerville is a web-friendly version of the classic Baskerville typeface. It’s optimized for body text but can also work well in headers, offering a balance of classical elegance and contemporary clarity.

8. Giaza

Giaza is a stylish typeface with a high level of contrast between its thick and thin lines, typically found in modern serif typefaces. It has a somewhat luxurious feel and can be used to impart an elegant and sophisticated look to your designs.

9. Armies Display

Armies Display is a bold and impactful font with a military-inspired design. Its tall and narrow letterforms give it a strong and authoritative feel, making it a great choice for projects related to security, defense, or law enforcement. It works well for logos, headlines, and editorial designs.

10. IBM Plex serif

IBM Plex Serif is a versatile typeface designed by IBM to be used globally. It’s a part of the larger IBM Plex family, which also includes IBM Plex Sans, Mono, and Sans Condensed. IBM Plex Serif is a transitional style serif font, meaning it features contrast in stroke weight and tends to have a more vertical stress in the rounded strokes. It is characterized by its excellent legibility and clean, modern aesthetics. The IBM Plex family was designed to function well on digital interfaces, making it a good choice for web and mobile applications.

Conclusion

I hope you found this guide covering the best Serif fonts in Canva, useful! Be sure to check out our blog for more article covering the essential tips, tricks, and advice for Canva! Also, if you haven’t already tried CanvaPro, you can try it for free for 30 days!