Fonts for Different Industries: SaaS, E-commerce, Blogs, Portfolios

Typography choices are not made in a vacuum. Every typeface carries associations built through years of usage in specific contexts, and those associations influence how visitors perceive your brand before reading a single word. A font that works perfectly for a creative portfolio can feel completely wrong for a financial SaaS dashboard. A font that communicates warmth and approachability for a lifestyle blog might undermine the authority a legal services platform needs.

This guide organizes font recommendations by the specific demands and personality requirements of four major web contexts: SaaS and tech products, e-commerce, content and blogs, and creative portfolios.

SaaS and Tech Products: Trust and Clarity

Software products have a specific typographic problem to solve: they need to communicate both trustworthiness (users are giving you their data, their workflows, their money) and clarity (complex information needs to be organized and readable). The typography of a SaaS dashboard must work as functional UI as well as brand communication.

The core requirements:

Functional readability at small sizes. SaaS interfaces have more text than marketing pages. Labels, data values, status messages, navigation items, and table contents all need to be clear at 12–14px. This rules out high-contrast serifs with thin strokes that deteriorate at small sizes.

Numerical clarity. Dashboard typography involves a lot of numbers. The font must have clear, unambiguous numerals — well-differentiated 0/O, 1/l/I, and 6/b. Fonts with tabular (fixed-width) numerals are ideal for tables and aligned data.

System integration. SaaS products appear alongside operating system UI. The font should feel at home next to macOS, Windows, and Chrome UI, not jarring against it.

Top SaaS font choices:

Inter is the default choice for SaaS in 2026 — and for good reason. Its design by Rasmus Andersson explicitly targets computer interfaces. The tall x-height, open apertures, clear numerals, and variable font capabilities make it the benchmark. Linear, GitHub, Vercel, and hundreds of other SaaS products use Inter.

/* Inter for SaaS: variable font for flexible weights */
@import url('https://fonts.googleapis.com/css2?family=Inter:opsz,[email protected],100..900&display=swap');

body {
  font-family: 'Inter', sans-serif;
  font-size: 14px;
  line-height: 1.5;
  font-feature-settings: 'tnum'; /* Tabular numerals for data */
}

.data-label {
  font-size: 11px;
  font-weight: 500;
  letter-spacing: 0.05em;
  text-transform: uppercase;
}

IBM Plex Sans is the alternative for SaaS products that want more personality than Inter while maintaining functional precision. IBM Plex Sans has a slightly warmer character — the "humanist" in its grotesque construction is more pronounced than Inter's optical detachment. It's also part of a complete type system (IBM Plex Serif, IBM Plex Mono) that covers every content type in a technical product.

DM Sans works particularly well for SaaS products targeting a design-literate audience. Its geometric humanist construction feels contemporary and considered. Like Inter, it has variable font support and comes with DM Serif Display as a natural heading companion — useful for marketing pages that need more personality than the product UI.

For SaaS marketing pages (as distinct from product UI):

Marketing pages for SaaS products can carry more typographic personality than the product itself. Combining a distinctive heading font with the same sans-serif used in the product creates coherence between marketing and product while allowing the marketing materials to be more expressive.

Montserrat as a heading font with Inter or Roboto as the body/UI font is one of the most common SaaS marketing page patterns — geometric confidence in headings, functional clarity in body.

Playfair Display with Inter creates an unexpected combination: editorial warmth in the marketing headings, technical precision in the product. This works for SaaS products targeting knowledge workers (editors, researchers, writers) where the editorial personality resonates.

Avoid for SaaS: Decorative scripts, handwriting fonts, high-contrast Didone serifs at small sizes, fonts with poor numerical rendering, any font without tabular numeral support if you're displaying data tables.

E-commerce: Conversion and Readability

E-commerce typography has one overriding goal: move visitors toward a purchase decision. Every typographic choice should support legibility, trust, and clarity of the path to conversion. This creates specific requirements that differ from editorial, brand, or UI typography.

The core requirements:

Product name readability. Product names appear in listings, search results, category pages, and product detail pages — often at small sizes (14–16px) with minimal context. The font must be legible at these sizes and differentiate product names clearly from prices, descriptions, and metadata.

Price prominence. Prices are among the most important pieces of information in e-commerce. The font must have clear, distinctive numerals. Many e-commerce sites use tabular numerals for price alignment in listing pages.

Trust signals. Reviews, security badges, and certification text need to read clearly and credibly. Overly decorative or casual fonts undermine trust in purchase contexts.

Mobile conversion. More than half of e-commerce traffic is mobile. Typography that works at mobile sizes — 320px viewport, 14–16px body — is not optional.

By category:

Fashion and lifestyle e-commerce:

Fashion e-commerce can carry more personality than general e-commerce. The brand positioning often depends on a distinctive typographic identity, and visitors expect visual sophistication.

Playfair Display for headings and product names creates immediate premium positioning. Its association with fashion editorial (magazines like Vogue use Didone-inspired typefaces) communicates quality to fashion-literate shoppers.

Cormorant Garamond for headings creates even more refinement — suitable for luxury fashion, jewelry, and premium lifestyle brands. Pair with a clean sans like Work Sans or Source Sans 3 for body text and product descriptions.

/* Premium fashion e-commerce */
.product-name {
  font-family: 'Playfair Display', serif;
  font-size: 22px;
  font-weight: 700;
  line-height: 1.2;
  letter-spacing: -0.01em;
}

.product-price {
  font-family: 'Lato', sans-serif;
  font-size: 18px;
  font-weight: 600;
  font-variant-numeric: tabular-nums;
}

.product-description {
  font-family: 'Lato', sans-serif;
  font-size: 15px;
  line-height: 1.7;
}

General retail and marketplace e-commerce:

For broader e-commerce (electronics, home goods, general merchandise), trust and clarity matter more than distinctive personality. The typography should feel professional and reliable without strong character associations that might not fit the full product catalog.

Roboto or Inter in a simple heading/body system covers virtually all general retail use cases. These fonts have maximum device compatibility, excellent numerical rendering, and neutral professional associations that work across diverse product categories.

Nunito Sans is a strong choice for consumer-friendly e-commerce — its slight warmth makes the shopping experience feel approachable without sacrificing readability. Good for marketplace models where the emphasis is on making buying easy and comfortable.

Home goods, craft, and artisan e-commerce:

For brands selling handmade, craft, or premium home goods, the typography should communicate the warmth and authenticity that differentiate artisan products from mass-market alternatives.

Lora for body text communicates warmth and care — its calligraphic heritage gives it an artisan quality. Pair with Montserrat or Raleway for headings.

EB Garamond at heading sizes communicates craft heritage elegantly. Combined with a simple sans for product details, it creates an artisan-meets-contemporary positioning.

Avoid for e-commerce: Handwriting fonts (undermines trust), ultra-display faces for product names (readability at small sizes suffers), fonts without clear numerals, fonts that download too slowly (performance affects conversion rate directly).

Blogs and Content Sites: Engagement and Comfort

Blog typography has a different set of constraints than UI typography or e-commerce. The primary job of blog typography is to sustain attention and minimize reading fatigue over extended sessions — readers who enjoy the reading experience will read more, return more often, and engage more deeply with the content.

The core requirements:

Extended reading comfort. The body font must be comfortable at the size and line length you're using for 500–5,000 word articles. Test with real articles, not placeholder text.

Heading hierarchy for scanners. Many readers scan blog content before deciding to read in full. The heading hierarchy (H1, H2, H3) needs to be visually clear so scanners can evaluate the content structure quickly.

Mobile readability. Blog reading often happens on phones. The type must be legible at 320–375px viewport widths without horizontal scrolling or uncomfortable text density.

Top blog font combinations:

The literary choice: Playfair Display + Lora

Playfair's editorial drama in headings combined with Lora's calligraphic warmth in body text creates a combination that feels literary and considered. Best for writing-focused blogs where the quality of prose is part of the brand identity. Writers, essayists, cultural critics, and thoughtful long-form publications work well with this combination.

/* Literary blog typography */
h1, h2 {
  font-family: 'Playfair Display', serif;
  font-weight: 700;
  line-height: 1.15;
}

h3, h4 {
  font-family: 'Playfair Display', serif;
  font-weight: 400;
  font-style: italic;
  line-height: 1.3;
}

p {
  font-family: 'Lora', serif;
  font-size: 18px;
  line-height: 1.8;
  max-width: 68ch;
}

The modern editorial choice: Montserrat + Merriweather

Montserrat's geometric boldness creates strong, scannable headings. Merriweather's screen-optimized readability handles long-form body text gracefully. This combination suits lifestyle blogs, technology commentary, business writing, and any content that benefits from clean modernity in headings and comfortable reliability in body.

The warm content choice: Raleway + EB Garamond

Raleway's distinctive geometric personality in headings (particularly its ExtraLight and Light weights for subtle elegance) combined with EB Garamond's Renaissance warmth in body text creates a refined, intellectual personality. Best for cultural, literary, and arts-focused blogs on high-resolution screens.

The accessible blog choice: Inter + Lato

Two high-performance sans-serifs in a clean, neutral system. Less personality than serif/sans combinations, but maximum readability across all devices and contexts. Good for technical blogs, developer content, and any audience that values information efficiency over typographic character.

Type scale for blogs:

/* Blog type scale */
:root {
  font-size: 18px;  /* Base for comfortable blog reading */
}

h1 { font-size: 2.5rem; }    /* 45px */
h2 { font-size: 1.875rem; }  /* 33.75px */
h3 { font-size: 1.375rem; }  /* 24.75px */
h4 { font-size: 1.125rem; }  /* 20.25px */
p  { font-size: 1rem; }      /* 18px — the base */

/* Line length control */
article p {
  max-width: 68ch; /* ~65 characters — ideal reading width */
  line-height: 1.75;
}

Avoid for blogs: Novelty fonts that distract from reading, high-contrast display serifs at body text sizes, fonts with poor hinting on Windows (where many blog readers are), decorative display faces as body fonts.

Creative Portfolios: Personality and Distinction

Portfolio typography has a paradox at its core: it needs to express personality (the designer or creative's individual voice) while remaining functional (visitors must be able to find and evaluate work quickly). The typography of a portfolio is itself a work sample — it demonstrates the creator's taste, typographic sensibility, and design judgment.

This means portfolio typography has more latitude for personality and risk than most other contexts. Unusual combinations are not only acceptable — they can be part of the work.

The core requirements:

Personality expression. The typography should reflect the creator's design voice. A minimalist designer using default fonts sends a confused signal. A maximalist designer using austere corporate type sends an equally confused signal.

Project focus. Portfolio pages exist to showcase projects. The typography should direct attention to the work, not compete with it.

Name and contact legibility. The creator's name and contact information must be clear and easy to find. No matter how expressive the decorative type, the functional type must be readable.

By portfolio type:

Graphic and brand designers:

Demonstrate type literacy directly by using a sophisticated pairing that shows classification awareness. Options:

Cormorant Garamond Light for name/headings with DM Sans for body creates an immediately sophisticated impression — the typographic contrast between extreme delicacy and functional clarity signals classical education and contemporary sensibility.

Space Grotesk for headings with EB Garamond for body creates a witty reversal — the quirky contemporary sans leading the classical humanist serif demonstrates playful sophistication with deep type literacy.

/* Graphic design portfolio: sophisticated pairing */
.portfolio-name {
  font-family: 'Cormorant Garamond', serif;
  font-weight: 300;
  font-size: 64px;
  letter-spacing: 0.04em;
}

.portfolio-body {
  font-family: 'DM Sans', sans-serif;
  font-size: 15px;
  line-height: 1.65;
}

Web and UX designers:

Use typography that demonstrates understanding of screen-optimized design. Heavy use of system fonts and variable fonts signals technical awareness.

Inter as the primary font (using weight variation for hierarchy rather than multiple families) demonstrates understanding of performance and screen optimization. A single well-executed family used masterfully often shows more design knowledge than an elaborate multi-family system.

Alternatively: Fraunces (a variable font with unusual optical adjustments) for an expressive heading choice alongside Inter shows both typographic personality and technical implementation awareness.

Illustrators and visual artists:

Typography should support the work without dominating it. Highly neutral, minimal typographic approaches often work best — the art carries the personality, the type carries the information.

Jost or Karla (both clean sans-serifs with subtle character) make excellent choices for illustrator portfolios — present enough to communicate professionalism, absent enough not to compete with the artwork.

Photographers:

Minimal, elegant typography that doesn't compete with images. Dark backgrounds with light text often suit photography portfolios.

Raleway ExtraLight for name and navigation creates maximum elegance. Pair with Lato for captions and descriptions. The lightness of Raleway ExtraLight on a dark background creates a gallery-like quality that enhances the photography.

Writers and journalists:

The typography of a writing portfolio should communicate literary quality and professionalism. Choose fonts that speak to publishing heritage.

Libre Baskerville for headings and Lora for body creates an editorial personality appropriate for writers who want to position themselves as serious literary professionals.

EB Garamond throughout (heading and body) using weight and size variation within the single family creates a quietly sophisticated literary personality. The entire portfolio speaks in one typographic voice — unified, serious, literary.

/* Writer portfolio: literary single-family system */
.writer-heading {
  font-family: 'EB Garamond', serif;
  font-size: 44px;
  font-weight: 400;
  font-style: normal;
}

.writer-subheading {
  font-family: 'EB Garamond', serif;
  font-size: 24px;
  font-style: italic;
  font-weight: 400;
}

.writer-body {
  font-family: 'EB Garamond', serif;
  font-size: 19px;
  line-height: 1.8;
  font-weight: 400;
}

Every creative industry has its own typographic conventions, and demonstrating awareness of those conventions — while bringing your own sensibility to bear — is what makes portfolio typography effective. Use the font pairing tool to explore combinations, and explore the font pages for any face in this guide to see its technical specifications, character set, and usage context. The right typography for your industry exists; the job is finding the specific expression of it that reflects your work and your audience.