Images are not the only things you can use for design flairs. Decorative fonts serve double purposes as communication tools and design elements. Font makers have come up with numerous decorative typefaces, from elegant and chic to bold ones. However, since decorative fonts have unique looks, you need to use them carefully.

What is a Decorative Font?

A decorative font, also known as a display typeface, is a font with exaggerated features like exaggerated serifs, swishes, curls, or calligraphic lines. It is used as a header, title font, or large text on media like cards and posters. Decorative fonts are also used for specific media such as book covers, movie posters, and podcast images.

The “decorative” part of this font has no limit in design. You can find numerous designs based on unique images or styles, such as casual handwriting, horror theme, visual effect like paint brushstrokes, vintage looks, and even playful handwriting.

Decorative fonts are not intended to be used as main body texts like sans serifs. They are used to draw attention and create more attractive designs. They come in various styles and even specific themes, from swirling calligraphic fonts to retro fonts.

Ideal Size for Decorative Fonts

There are reasons why decorative fonts are not intended for paragraphs or body texts. If you use standard sizes for body texts (11 to 14), the texts will become illegible because of the exaggerated features. Small texts also prevent people from appreciating the specific decorative elements that become the main characteristics.

Large decorative fonts add unique styles to web designs, book titles, or cards, depending on your design themes. For headlines, the ideal size starts from 32, but you can make it slightly smaller or larger depending on the layout and legibility.

Tips to Use Decorative Fonts

You may use decorative fonts less often than standard ones, but make sure you know the basic guide to use them properly. 

• Increase the Spaces between Lines

Avoid tight spaces when you write or type with decorative fonts. Wider spaces allow easier readings because they accommodate descenders, ascenders, artistic underlines, and many more.

• Decorative Font as Initial Cap

An initial decorative cap is great to add flair into your design without being excessive. It will also grab attention and improve an ordinary webpage or printed material. An initial decorative cap also serves as a “pointer”, directing the viewers’ eyes to the starting sport.

• Avoid All Caps If Possible

All caps can make decorative fonts hard to read, depending on the designs. The letters do not have the same “flow” as the usual combination of lowercase and uppercase letters. However, sometimes all caps work if you need something short but eye-catching, like a website name or logo.

21 Decorative Font Recommendations

Now that you understand the basics, here are recommended decorative fonts to try and experiment with.

• Delbert

Delbert is a modern decorative font in swishing brushstrokes, with curved edges and bold, underline strokes for emphasis. The lettering combines ligatures and standalone characters, creating a casual and modern look. The stylistic brushstrokes and swashes make the font perfect for fashion campaigns, taglines, and social media posts.

• Dark Flame

Let makes your lettering “hotter” using Dark Flame, a decorative font with an artistic flame design. This blackletter type font has unique raised curves as flairs and bold strokes to make the lettering stands out. The tight kerning gives extra space for bold, attractive lettering—a perfect font for fashion, music, and game promotions.

• Black Lagoon

Adds horror flair to your design with Black Lagoon, the Halloween-style decorative font with unique curves and slanted edges. The wide strokes and tight space make the lettering more attractive. Black Lagoon has all caps lettering, making it perfect for movie posters, book covers, or podcast images. Promote your horror-related material with this font.

• Lullaby

Need something that looks casually playful? A lullaby is a nice option. This playful handwriting script has curved ligatures and decorative curls, complete with a curved underline for design emphasis. Lullaby is playful without looking childish, and you can incorporate it in a casual design. Use this font to promote festivals, brands, and unique social media posts.

• Instant Crush

Brushstroke effects on fonts make your design more interesting in a subtle way. Instant Crush is a decorative handwriting font with visible brushstroke effects, adding an authentic vibe to the lettering. Combining ligatures and standalone characters within tight spaces, Instant Crush instantly draws attention and adds a unique touch to your design.

You can use Instant Crush for various design projects or materials. Use it as brand logos, headlines, greeting cards, and promotional materials.

• Bigbass

Sometimes, you need all caps font to make a statement. Bigbass is a great option for playful decorative fonts with a bold look. Its all-caps lettering has thick strokes and rounded edges that create a casual, playful, but still stylish look. The bold style is a perfect font for headline, brand logo, event announcement, invitation, and printed design.

• Olivia

Need decorative font with elegant, chic quality? Olivia is a great option from the handwriting type category. The slim, elegant, but slightly casual strokes create a modern chic look. The unique curls and ligatures on the lettering make the font looks authentic. Olivia has a casual element that keeps it from looking too formal.

Olivia is not ideal as body text. However, it is a great font for greeting cards, quotes, brand taglines, and wedding-related business materials.

• Cottage

Choosing an abstract font for your design is always a little bit of a gamble. However, an abstract font can create a unique touch in your design if you use it correctly. The cottage is an abstract serif font with all-caps lettering, ideal for stylistic materials like logos, fashion brands, album covers, game slides, podcast images, and many more.

The cottage has stylistic serifs that resemble “thorns”, with sharp points and edges on each character. The result is a standout, sharp look, recommended with a large size for better legibility.

• Mighty Standwood

Create a modern, “urban” look with a subtle brush effect using Mighty Standwood. The casual handwriting style with tilted strokes creates a modern, slightly playful look. The tight space between characters and the stylish strokes makes the font ideal for brand names, website headlines, book or album cover arts, and promotional texts.

• Toothless

Toothless is a decorative font that combines elegant handwriting and casual strokes. The lettering has alternating ligatures, giving this handwriting font a subtle quirk. The casual, chic look makes it ideal for a fashion campaign, book covers, catalogues, and artistic, social media posts. Toothless also looks great to be printed on business cards.

• Blackout

Blackout is a great font to create a “soft retro” look. The handwriting script has a subtle 3D touch with its shadow effect. The ligatures and curved swish of the underline create a soft but distinctive retro look. The font is available in regular and bold options that you can adjust to your final design look.

Blackout is a great decorative font for branding, presentation, and headline. It is also great to advertise restaurants, bistros, and coffee shops. For example, you can use this font for advertising recommended menu before switching to the regular font for the details.

•  Zaheera

Want to use two styles while staying in one font? Zaheera gives you a combination of brush script and sans serif. The brush script has a chic and slightly playful look, exaggerated swirls and tail strokes to make the lettering more interesting. The sans serif is more conventional, but the strokes still show a subtle, casual-chic look.

Zaheera is a great font if you need a headline or title with a smaller tagline or slogan underneath. You can keep the look consistent even when using two types of script. Use Zaheera for branding, t-shirt design, book or album covers, logo, social media headers, and many more.

• Sareeka

Sweet, elegant, and romantic, Sareeka is a perfect font to create a feminine touch in any design. The handwriting script gives you a soft cursive look, exaggerated curls, underline swish, and beautiful loops. The thin strokes add an elegant touch.

Sareeka is a popular font for greeting cards, wedding invitations, and elegant brands. Simple phrases like “Thank You”, “Just Married”, or “Congratulations” become more attractive with this font.

• Frankey

Create a soft, retro look that suits the modern aesthetic with Frankey. This decorative font has beautiful ligatures and rounded curls on the tails and swashes. Unlike the typical vintage font, Frankey offers a slight contemporary vibe. 

Frankey’s unique look makes it great to promote businesses and establishments, such as barbershops, bistros, restaurants, and bookstores. You can also use this font to promote streamed albums, events, and podcasts.

• Dalima

Get the simple elegance of a quickly scribbled signature in Dalima. This unique decorative font has a style that mimics a natural-looking signature. The beautiful ligatures and strokes make the lettering look elegant in a casual way. It also adds a natural touch to any design, looking elegant and chic at the same time.

Make sure you use a large font size with Dalima to ensure legibility. This font is perfect for greeting cards, invitations, and businesses such as wedding organizers, bridal services (dresses, catering, decorations), fashion, and art projects. Dalima also looks great on a stylish business card.

• Bloomberg

Want a handwriting script that looks casual without looking childish? Bloomberg should be your choice. This decorative font combines occasional ligatures, stylish alternates, and casual circular loops in the strokes. The resulting look resembles casual handwriting that is hastily scribbled, trendy without looking too formal.

Bloomberg is a great font for branding in different themes, from fashion to food and beverage. Bloomberg also looks stylish and modern when printed on business cards, especially since it requires a large size to be legible.

• Spillages

Spillages give you a modern script lettering that resembles wide brushstrokes. It has a stylish, slightly tilted design with uneven strokes and ligatures. The result is contemporary lettering with a touch of chic and vintage for a stylish design.

Spillages should be used in large font sizes to ensure legibility. You can use this to promote art and photo portfolios, travel services, food and beverage, text logos, and many more. The thick strokes also make it ideal to be displayed on top of an image.

• Backstreet

Backstreet is a casual, modern handwriting script with a unique visual effect. The strokes resemble chalk or paint streaks with a wide brush, giving your extra text personality. It has mostly alternate spaces between characters with occasional ligatures. The swishes and curves also make Backstreet look like organic handwriting.

Backstreet’s unique visual touch is perfect for promotional images or slides. The modern style is ideal for branding, catalogues, presentation, and art projects. The visual effect instantly attracts attention, making it perfect for promoting new products or event launching.

• Novanille

Novanille is a vintage decorative font for those who want to look different. Each character consists of double lines with artistic juts and curved edges, creating a distinctive look that differs from typical vintage fonts. Novanille is an all-caps font, so you can use this to draw attention using headlines, text logos, or taglines.

You can make Novanille text more legible by using different font sizes between characters. Use a bigger font size for the very first character to create a distinction between sentences. Use Novanille as text logos, promotional campaigns, album or poster arts, and podcast images.

•  Supremacy

Make your design look more sophisticated with Supremacy, a beautiful font that resembles elegant handwriting. It has exaggerated swishes and loop tails that make it fashionable and posh. The style will make your design projects and materials stand out, and it is ideal for business or greeting cards.

•  Chunky

Finally, if you love vintage comic book aesthetics, Chunky is a great option. This bold lettering has a 3D element from its subtle shadowy effect, with a slightly playful look that is still respectable enough for brand campaigns, design projects, and presentations.

There are no limits in creativity and possibilities when it comes to decorative fonts. Download these fonts and make sure you know the proper way to use them before creating a bold, unique, attractive design.