10 best fonts for email signatures (100% email-safe)

Risks of choosing the wrong email signature font

It may not seem that way, but getting your signature font wrong can run a big risk. A failed choice of email signature font can cause some all too often problems:

• If your font is not web-safe it may not be available in all email platforms or browsers. If so, the browsers will fall back to a default font that may break your signature design (read on for more information about fallback fonts).
• If your font is too stylish it may create an unprofessional impression or cause people to assume you are disorderly or unreliable.
• If your font is not legible and hard to read most people may opt not to read your signature info.

Remember, fonts communicate a lot about you, and by association also your business and personal brand, so it’s important to pick a safe font and invest some thought before choosing the right font look. let’s see what goes into this consideration.

How to choose the best email signature font

To figure out which font is the best for your signature, you need to consider 2 factors: practicality and psychology. Let’s take a closer look at both.

How to choose a practical signature font?

1) Choose a legible font

I.e. a font that’s easy to read. This means you should avoid cursive or heavily styled fonts with lots of decorations. When it comes to clear, legible fonts, you want to stick to 2 font families, serif or sans-serif.

Serif fonts are more often used for print while sans serif is more common for digital, although both of them are favorites for print and digital media alike.

It’s extremely important to choose a web-safe font so that your email signature displays exactly as you intend it to. On the flip side, if the font isn’t “web-safe” and the recipient’s device does not recognize the font, it could display in a completely different font that you have no control over.

2) Choose a web-safe font

I.e. fonts that are pre-installed on most computers, operating systems, mobile devices, and browsers.

A web-safe font will be available for display on most commonly used browsers, such as Chrome, Safari, and Firefox, and common operating systems, such as Microsoft Windows, Apple iOS, Apple macOS, Google Android OS, and Linux Operating System.

All the signature fonts we included in this list are web-safe, so you can count on them to work 99% of the time.

What is a fallback font?

As we mentioned earlier, not all fonts are compatible with every browser or email platform. If you’re using a font in your signature which isn’t compatible with a certain platform, and the fonts aren’t installed on your recipient’s OS, the platform will automatically revert to a fallback font.

The fallback font differs between email platforms and web browsers, but if you’re not happy with either of the default fonts, you can choose another email-safe font from the list above which will serve as a fallback font for your signature across all platforms.

Here are the fallback fonts used by default on each email platform unless defined otherwise:

Leverage psychological effects to create a positive impression using fonts

Now it’s time to look at the psychology behind the styling and appearance of fonts, which is also known as typography. Various studies have shown that certain fonts can affect the reader’s emotions and perception of the material they are reading.

According to a study by Wichita State University, Serif fonts are perceived as being “stable,” “practical,” and “mature.” Meanwhile, sans-serif fonts were perceived as neutral; they didn’t evoke any positive or negative emotions and are, therefore, considered a safe, all-purpose type of font to use.

Once again, serif and sans-serif fonts are the winners. Not only are they practical for digital communication, but they also convey an image of stability and do not evoke strong emotions from the reader.

Top email signature fonts (updated to 2023)

All the fonts on our list are Serif and Sans Serif fonts since they are easy to read and have a positive psychological effect on readers.

Also, the signature fonts on this list are all either used by Microsoft or by Google. By limiting ourselves only to fonts from their respective libraries we ensure that all the fonts on the list are web-safe. That’s because most people use either Outlook (by Microsoft) or Gmail (by Google) and Apple covers these fonts as well. This ensures a very high certainty that your font will work for 99% of people.

But, even with these limitations you still have quite a few fonts to choose from. So we let our designers pick the font they think is most appealing and appropriate for a professional email signature.

1) Arial

Microsoft font

2) Verdana

Microsoft font

3) Helvetica – (Works 100% only on Mac)

Microsoft font

4) Trebuchet MS

Microsoft font

5) Georgia

Microsoft font

6) Times New Roman

Microsoft font

7) Garamond – 100% only on Mac

Microsoft font

These were our top picks, but there are many more to choose from if you didn’t find your font here. Check out the Microsoft font library and the Google fonts library for a deeper dive.

And if you found your font and you’re ready to make a professional email signature – see the next section.

And if you found your font and you’re ready to make a professional email signature – see the next section.

Email signature font generator

Within the WiseStamp email signature generator, click on the fonts selector. A drop-down menu will then allow you to select the right signature font, as seen below. It really couldn’t get any easier.

Our design team recommends using Verdana if you prefer Sans Serif fonts, and Georgia or Times New Roman if you prefer Serif fonts. Or just try them all out to see in action which you prefer.