The 13 best subtitle fonts that help to improve your video engagement

In many cases, subtitles and captions are essential to help video content be understandable.

Whether it’s a documentary video, a movie, or only a short, entertaining video, subtitles can be the key to improve engagement.

The 3 main factors of good subtitles include transparency, comprehension, and comfort on the eye.

To meet all three factors above, the font is the most important choice.

However, how many subtitle fonts are good to use in videos? Keep reading the following article to find them out right away.

Some notes you must remember before choosing subtitle font

Applying subtitles looks similar to having a DIY job until you carry it out and find it failed; for instance, poorly placed captions or text makes viewers hardly understand your video.

Fortunately, auto subtitles like Motionbear have several font style options for you to choose from, depending on the video content.

To make the best subtitle fonts, you can imagine a visually impaired viewer looking for your videos. To help him understand your video, you need to find the best methods to increase his text or words’ visibility.

You will also need to look into the background variation in your subtitle color, and whether the subtitles prevent access to important video content.

Also, consider the content’s recipient platform, and how the final subtitles will reflect your video when you post it. 

These elements must be taken under your guidance when you pick up and edit fonts. 

It should be done to guarantee you choose the correct size, place, color, and follow other patterns.

Clarity

For subtitles, clarity is necessary as it affects the readability of the subtitle.

Therefore, you should take care of material such as spacing in letters and words. In addition, you should test how comfortable it is to read each word and how meaningful each character is.

Choose between bold and thin fonts, or use italics and straight fonts based on your particular clip’s work.

Color

Font color can make the difference between a false choice and a well-constructed subtitle font.

The wrong font color option can cause a good or bad subtitle experience.

Remember that text appears in front of videos, so it’s essential to choose a font color that can maintain text readability, despite the dynamic background light and effects.

The ability to work on several platforms

Choosing a font that works well on various platforms is essential to enhance video accessibility. It supports viewers to watch the subtitles despite the device or website.

Readability and positioning

Even with the lighting effects added, the video subtitles should be clear.

Text alignment, spacing, and how the text looks when dialogs start can also affect reading capacity.

When adding subtitles to a video, positioning is necessary as well. Although you don’t want to stress your audience by covering subtitles at the end of the footage, it’s essential to make sure that no subtitles appear in front of important videos.

In addition, depending on where you post your videos, not all positions are good to put subtitles on.

Some most common subtitle fonts

1. Arial

The world’s most famous font you’ve undoubtedly seen anywhere. It’s a universal sans serif style that adapts to any support.

Even if it seems familiar and too common, boring to use, it’s very effective to make your tutorial and presentation videos look more convenient.

However, if you want to make a distinction, there are other better fonts to use.

Arial is also considered a safe and simple sans serif font to use. When it comes to subtitles and captions, Arial brings no flashy or distracting.

Arial’s distinct lack of style has long been a favorite choice. You can also try out Arial Black, but it’s a bit heavy when going along with longer phrases.

2. Roboto

Roboto is one of the most famous font styles now. You can broadly apply this font to various types of devices, size screens, and designs.

Since our eyes are so familiar with this font style, it’s quick and easy to read.

The objective of using subtitles is to make the content more user-accessible; therefore, Roboto is a good option. It’s also the official subtitles font of Google.

Many Internet interfaces have chosen to deliver readable content to every watcher for its readability and optimal finesse. You can also use Roboto for your corporate presentations and animated work, which are filled with long and detailed texts.

3. Tiresias

Tiresia is invented by the Royal National Institute of Blind People, used for vision-impaired people. It’s clear and pleasant to the eyes, according to the BBC’s broadcasts. And it will significantly improve your conference videos and interviews.

Thanks to its readability, especially for people who need to read to learn what is happening on the screen, the BBC uses Tiresias Infofont.

Tiresias consists of two text options: Free Infofont and premium Screenfont, which is explicitly made for TV with more main rooms and dashes.

4. Antique-Olive

Antique-Olive is distinct for its legibility and transparency from a more humanistic perspective.

It shows a more modern aesthetic, dispensing a more prominent character than a classic style.

Use this font to make video content accessible to all. Antique Olive is a sans serif style with a certain nature, recommended for big-screen subtitles.

The letterforms are rounded and have a uniform stroke width, yet with some sophisticated design elements, giving the typeface a little more appealing than Arial.

When using a font for a subtitle, you must consider how different the typeface’s weight will carry out background colors and opposite movement.

Some designers place subtitles in a black box with white lettering for all utilities, even though it can remove them from the screen’s action.

5. STIXGeneral

STIXGeneral is a more advanced serif option for documentaries or video journalism.

Due to its royalty, you can use it for titles or white text openings instead of black to tell a story or set explanation.

However, if you use tons of text all over your video, STIXGeneral may be a little too fancy. But it’s good to try STIXGeneral out if you want to add some esteem to your project.

6. Verdana

Verdana is a popular and very new option for technology, innovation, and industry projects.

Verdana is a solid serif font, looks closely constructed, and doesn’t take much space in the lower position of the screen for subtitles.

If you work with short film projects or feature films, it’s also often seen with sci-fi projects.

7. Helvetica Neue

This is really a famous typeface these days with its own documentary. But if not for its variety of options, Helvetica Neue may outstrip it. You can select the following font types in Premiere Pro:

• Condensed Bold
• Condensed Black
• UltraLight
• UltraLight Italic
• Thin
• Thin Italic
• Light
• Light Italic
• Regular
• Italic
• Medium
• Medium Italic
• Bold
• Bold Italic

This gives you the wide range to decide how much space your text needs in a particular situation. We look at Helvetica Neue Regular for this example.

8. Times

The Times font stands out for its simplistic approach. It’s similar to its brother, Times New Roman.

Times seems to recall an actual default font to those who may know of it since Microsoft Word’s days.

But even if it’s not your personal preference at that time, it’s an “ordinary font,” and the most important factor is, it doesn’t distract people.

9. Futura

Inspired in the 1920s by the Bauhaus style, Futura brings the vision of progress and innovation.

This is a really flexible sans serif font that adapts to many contexts with its geometric and atypical forms. Futura is worth using to differentiate your content in your promotional videos.

10. Myriad

Myriad has been used by Apple for years, and is designed for a broad, knowledgeable audience.

It expresses the simplicity of its personality on all video interfaces in a rather neutral reading. We highly recommend you use Myriad as a more classic font alternative.

11. Gotham

Gotham is also the latest and most original font of our top. It’s invented as a masculine, reliable, and robust design, and its extremely clear personality characterizes the visitor’s eyes.

You can use Gotham for short films and more impressive videos, often in movies.

12. Archivo

That’s pretty huge, less chic, but your audience at least is going to see it. However, if you don’t want to hide some parts of the picture, you should reduce the font size.

And, of course, you can do that with Archivo.

13. Tahoma

This font offers clear glyph forms as Verdana, but is far more space. Choose Tahoma if you want genuinely unintrusive subtitles. However, for people with dyslexia, it can be more difficult to read.

How can I select the best video subtitles?

There are so many choices to get lost easily!

So, how to choose the best subtitles font for your video?

First, you have to match the tone of your video and your target audience. Is your content more focused on a broad public, potential clients, informed clients? Is it formal, dynamic, colorful, funny?

All these questions will help you define the best subtitles font style that suits the personality you want to express, and your situation.

Some fonts like Myriad or Futura are more pronounced and can help you stand out online while maintaining absolute readability.

Before inserting subtitles, you should analyze the top priorities to find the right style for your video.

Best readable subtitles practices

Good subtitles should not distract or mix in. Consider the following suggestions when creating your subtitles to make them as accessible as possible:

Left aligns text.

Readability font: 22 pt.

Use intense contrast colors.

Avoid harsh colors.

Ensure the subtitles remain legible in light and dark situations.

Where to put subtitle font in your video

You aspire to keep everything easy for the audience because multimedia files are used as on-the-go content.

A live video viewer has seconds to collect subtitles at the bottom of the screen. Calligraphy-like letters can only reduce the number of subtitles and destroy the whole subtitles.

It would be helpful if you use formal-looking, easily readable styles that make sense to all.

The majority of video makers and generator auto subtitles place subtitles on the screen’s base. It’s used regularly, since the lower section shows graphs are not meant for the audience.

It’s vital to focus the captions at the bottom so that the watcher’s eye doesn’t need to pass over the screen to read a caption.

Although this method applies to films and other videos, it’s an excellent choice for commercial videos.

Usually, this section hosts company information like Facebook or Twitter handle, news, and other social media data.

How to accurately add subtitles with Motionbear?

STEP 1

Upload a video

Upload your video in any format, select a language and let our Artificial Intelligence handle its magic.

STEP 2

Style your subtitles

Select a font, its color, background, size, and alignment. You can also add a headline and your logo.

STEP 3

Export and share

Download your video and upload it with the subtitles embedded

Besides content, images, and audio, subtitles are a priority factor that you can’t ignore.

You’ll see a movie, or a video won’t be published without subtitles in many cases.

Properly using subtitles at the right time will help watchers get the most out of the video, highlight unclear parts, and provide content that is friendly to audiences from many different countries.

Free or paid subtitle software is not uncommon today, such as Motionbear, which allows you to make subtitles yourself without outsourcing completely. 

Easy, affordable, and high effect. So, what are you waiting for but exploiting the outstanding effectiveness of subtitles, and see the improvement in your video’s engagement.

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