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What's the Best Font for Video Captions?

Captions and subtitles are proven ways for content creators to increase engagement and elevate storytelling. Beyond enriching the experience for the viewer, captions also play an important role in making your content clear and accessible to a wider audience.

With so much video content being published across social media platforms every day, creators have to dive into more creative choices to stand out from the noise. Creative font selections for video captions is an effective way to do that. Let’s dive into choosing the best font for video captions to maximize your content performance and increase viewership.

How to Pick a Font for Captions on Video Content

When it comes to finding the best font for video captions, content creators need to look beyond native platform editing tools. Social media platform editing toolkits are conveniently available on the app, but are limited. To make your media stand out, it needs to be different than all the rest. Unique fonts for video captions capture viewer attention more quickly because it’s something new, something different, and not the same font they’re seeing over and over again.

Learning how to pick a font for captions on video content is also a skill content creators need to develop. Much more than just picking a font at random, you should be sure it will engage viewers, be easily readable, and not distract from the video itself. Some tips for choosing the best font for video captions include:

  1. Look for text that is clear and informative, but not distracting or that takes away from the other visual information on-screen. 
  2. Make sure caption text is large enough to read, but not cutting into frame too much.
  3. Avoid highly-stylized fonts that may be difficult to read. Trendiness doesn’t trump practicality.
  4. Choose a video caption font that fits your brand and keep it consistent across your media, if possible.
  5. Use an app like MixCaptions that gives you direct control over font color, size, and placement.
  6. Import your own font for extra creative control to match your brand style guide.
  7. Pay attention to any platform guidelines for video caption fonts to avoid posting issues.

The best fonts for video captions engage viewers and help tell your story. Have fun with it, but remember the importance of accessibility to avoid creating captions with fonts people can’t read easily.

What Are the Best Fonts for Video Captions?

We’ve gone over considerations for video caption fonts, now which ones are the best? We’ve put together a list of the best fonts for video captions to maximize your media’s potential. Using the best caption app, MixCaptions, you can create, edit, style, and place captions with ease, streamlining the editing process and letting you scale your content creation. 

Pro Tip: Available on the Mac App Store (in addition to iOS and Google Play), MixCaptions gives you the option to edit using a desktop version if that’s your preference.

Choosing the best font for video captions adds an extra touch of professionalism. Some of our favorite video caption fonts are:

  • Lucida Grande
  • Roboto
  • Merriweather
  • Poppins
  • Lemon Yellow Sun
  • Futura
  • Impact

Lucida Grande

 Lucida Grande

A premium font, Lucida Grande is a clear and simple sans-serif font that makes your video captions easy to read. It’s perfect to stand out from standard fonts available in native platform editing toolkits.

Roboto

Roboto font

Where Roboto isn't the most shocking entry on our list for choosing the best font for a video captions, it's a tried and true favorite content creators get results using.  The clean geometric curves and a distinct mechanical styling give viewers a feeling of rhythm and flow, keeping them engaged with your media.  Its unique characteristics give it its position as the standard subtitle font for Google and YouTube.  Just because it's standard doesn't mean it's not eye-catching, though.  Adding some styling effects to this font will have your video content looking unique and custom.

Merriweather

Merriweather font

The Merriweather font was designed specifically to look pleasant on the screen. It’s a low-contrast font making it perfect for screens of all sizes, appealing to viewers on mobile, tablet, and desktop applications. There are currently 8 styles of Merriweather that range from Light, to Extrabold in both Roman and Italic styles.

Poppins

Poppins Font

Poppins also makes our list of the best fonts for video captions and is a sans serif font you can get for free. The choice to upload custom fonts into MixCaptions means you can use Poppins and style it to make it your own for a unique storytelling experience. Perfect circles and geometric influences make this a prime choice for the best font for video captions, providing a minimalist and clean appearance. Poppins delivers a warm, friendly vibe to viewers and engages their senses in subtle ways.

Lemon Yellow Sun

Lemon Yellow Sun Font

The Lemon Yellow Sun font is a skinny handwriting font giving video content a personalized, engaging feel right from the start. You don’t have to use this particular font, however, as any clear, handwritten-style font can be used to the same effect (hint: there’s a handwritten-style font available on MixCaptions already).

Futura

Futura Font

Futura is a flexible sans serif font perfect for just about any kind of video content. This caption font for videos clearly shows up against a wide range of backgrounds, making it readable without distracting from your media. Using MixCaptions for styling video fonts lets you take this versatile typeface and add some flair to help it stand out even more.

Impact

Impact Font

Last on our list, but no less exciting, is Impact. This font is a realist sans-serif typeface with bold characters. Best when used with minimal text to avoid clutter, the Impact font still makes our list of the best fonts for video captions because it commands viewer attention. You won’t miss out on the chance to make an impression when you add this font for video captions to your next post.

There are countless fonts available, with more being created each day. Choosing the best font for video captions centers on improving storytelling with readable, accessible, and engaging text. Learn more about why captions are important and elevate your video content to its full potential.

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