Though it takes some time to get a feel for how well fonts will perform together, a few basic rules of thumb serve as guidelines. These simple guidelines can be extremely helpful in a pinch. The best rule of thumb for the uninitiated is to stick with two fonts - one serif, one sans serif. With the exception of applications using wild display, titling and script typefaces, two serif types and two sans serif types almost always conflict when used together on a single page. The easiest method of getting a serif and sans serif fonts to work together requires only a little typographic terminology.
Typefaces fall into certain classifications based on their design characteristics.
This helps a great deal in deciding whether two typefaces will go well together. The most simple way to arrive at a probable match is to determine in which class the serif typeface being used belongs to. We have constructed two charts to assist you in this process. One chart contains samples of serif fonts, the other chart samples of sans serif fonts. You will notice brackets leading to a letter next to the listing of samples.