The short answer: use a sturdy sans-serif with a large x-height, such as Inter, Open Sans or Lato, and stop at two typefaces: one for headings, one for body text, or a single family in two weights. On a 1080 px slide, set headings at 60–100 px and body text at 40–48 px. Thin weights, script fonts and long lines in capitals are what fail on a phone.
What makes a font work on a carousel
A carousel is read on a phone, quickly, often in daylight. The fonts that survive that share a few traits you can check without knowing anything about type design:
- A large x-height. The lowercase letters are tall relative to the capitals, so text reads bigger at the same size.
- Open shapes. The gaps in letters like a, e and c stay open, so they do not fill in when the slide is small.
- Distinct letters. Capital I, lowercase l and the number 1 do not look alike.
- Sturdy weights. Regular for body, semibold or bold for headings. Light and thin weights fade on a small, bright screen.
Six fonts compared on the same slide
These are the six typefaces in cropdot's editor, all free on Google Fonts under the Open Font License. Same words, same size, same slide.
| Font | Character | Best for |
|---|---|---|
| Inter | Neutral, drawn for screens, large x-height | Everything; the safest single choice |
| Open Sans | Humanist, open and friendly | Body text, longer slides |
| Lato | Warm, slightly rounded | Body text with a softer tone |
| Roboto | Mechanical, familiar from Android | Technical and product topics |
| Montserrat | Geometric and wide, inspired by street signs in Buenos Aires | Short, bold headings |
| Poppins | Geometric, round and wide | Headings with a friendly feel |
Pairings that work
A pairing works when the two fonts are clearly different in one way and alike in the rest. A wide geometric face for headings and a calm humanist one for body text is the classic recipe.
- Montserrat headings, Inter body. Confident and clean; a good default for business topics.
- Poppins headings, Open Sans body. Friendlier; suits personal stories and career advice.
- Inter only, in two weights. Semibold headings, regular body. Hard to get wrong.
- Lato only. Warm without trying, for coaching and well-being topics.
In cropdot every text layer has its own font, so a heading and the body under it can use different families.
Sizes on a 1080 px slide
| Text | Size | Weight |
|---|---|---|
| First slide headline | 80–100 px | Semibold or bold |
| Slide heading | 60–70 px | Semibold |
| Body | 40–48 px | Regular |
| Numbers, labels, handle | About 36 px | Medium |
For reference, cropdot's editor scale (xs to 3xl) comes out at about 41, 47, 54, 61, 68, 81 and 101 px on the exported slide. Its defaults are 61 px for headings and 47 px for body text.
Small things that make type look designed
- Tighter line spacing for headings (about 1.1 to 1.2 times the size), looser for body text (about 1.4 to 1.5).
- Capitals only for short labels. A kicker like “STEP 2” works; a sentence in capitals is slow to read.
- Short lines. With wide margins a body line holds about 30 to 40 characters on a slide. If a paragraph runs to six lines, the slide holds too much.
- No faux styles. Use the font's real bold and italic rather than stretching or slanting it.
- One family per role, everywhere. The same heading font on every slide, including the first and the last.
Fonts and the PDF
If you design in PowerPoint, Keynote or Word, export a PDF with fonts embedded instead of uploading the original file: a deck uploaded as is can be shown with substitute fonts. Tools that export each slide as an image, cropdot included, avoid the problem entirely, since the text is already drawn.
In cropdot
The text panel offers the six fonts above, the size scale, bold, italic and letter case for every text layer. Custom brand fonts cannot be uploaded yet. For the rest of the visual system, from contrast to margins, see LinkedIn carousel design.