The best font for your email signature
The best signature font is one your reader already has. Email apps don't download fonts the way websites do, so a signature is shown in whatever font is installed on the reader's device. Below, the same signature in each of the seven web-safe fonts, rendered live.
Short answer
- Sans-serif, modern: Arial (or Helvetica on Apple-heavy teams).
- Most readable at small sizes: Verdana or Tahoma.
- Serif, traditional: Georgia.
- Size: 13 px for details, 17 px for your name.
Why web-safe fonts
When you choose a font for a website, the browser downloads it. Email is different: Gmail, Outlook and most mobile apps don't load custom fonts in a signature, and classic Outlook for Windows renders email with Microsoft Word's engine, which uses only fonts installed on the computer. If the reader doesn't have your font, they see a substitute you didn't choose.
Web-safe fonts are the ones installed on nearly every Windows and Mac computer. Each Fairsig font comes with a fallback list (for example Verdana, Geneva, sans-serif), so if the first font is missing the next one is used, not a random default.
The 7 fonts compared
Same details, same template, only the font changes. Click “Use this signature” to start from that font.
Arial
| Laura Simmons Account Director · Brightpath Media |
| (404) 555-0121 brightpath.example |
| Made with Fairsig |
The default choice for good reason: neutral, installed almost everywhere, and the fallback many apps use anyway. It never looks wrong, and never looks distinctive.
Helvetica
| Laura Simmons Account Director · Brightpath Media |
| (404) 555-0121 brightpath.example |
| Made with Fairsig |
Standard on Apple devices, where it looks slightly crisper than Arial. On Windows, Helvetica is usually missing and the font stack falls back to Arial, so most readers will see Arial.
Verdana
| Laura Simmons Account Director · Brightpath Media |
| (404) 555-0121 brightpath.example |
| Made with Fairsig |
Designed for reading on screens at small sizes: wide letters and generous spacing. The most legible option at 12 px, but it takes more horizontal space, so keep lines short.
Tahoma
| Laura Simmons Account Director · Brightpath Media |
| (404) 555-0121 brightpath.example |
| Made with Fairsig |
A narrower relative of Verdana, still very readable at small sizes. A good choice if Verdana makes your contact line wrap.
Trebuchet MS
| Laura Simmons Account Director · Brightpath Media |
| (404) 555-0121 brightpath.example |
| Made with Fairsig |
A humanist sans-serif with a bit of personality. Friendly for creative and small-business signatures, and widely installed.
Georgia
| Laura Simmons Account Director · Brightpath Media |
| (404) 555-0121 brightpath.example |
| Made with Fairsig |
The best serif for screens: solid at small sizes, with a traditional feel that suits law, finance, academia and publishing.
Times New Roman
| Laura Simmons Account Director · Brightpath Media |
| (404) 555-0121 brightpath.example |
| Made with Fairsig |
Traditional and formal, but small and thin at signature sizes. Choose Georgia instead unless you need to match printed letterhead.
What about Calibri, Segoe UI or Aptos?
These are Microsoft fonts. Calibri and Aptos come with Microsoft Office, and Segoe UI with Windows, so readers on a Windows PC with Office will usually have them, but many Mac, iPhone and Android readers won't. If your whole audience is inside a Microsoft 365 company they can work; for external email, the fonts above are safer.
Size, weight and color
- Name: bold and 2–4 px larger than the rest. That's all the hierarchy most signatures need.
- Details: regular weight, 12–14 px. Fairsig offers 12, 13 and 14 px.
- Color: dark gray rather than pure black, and one accent color for the name, labels or a divider.
- Avoid: italics for whole lines, all capitals for long text, and light gray on white, which disappears on phones in sunlight and in dark mode.
Fonts for Arabic and other scripts
For Arabic, Hebrew, Chinese and other scripts, mail apps use the system font for that script whatever you choose, so pick a font for its Latin characters (your email, phone number, URLs) and let the system handle the rest. Fairsig's Arabic labels switch the layout to right-to-left automatically.
Questions
Can I use my brand font (or a Google Font) in my signature?
Not reliably. Most mail apps don't load web fonts in signatures, and classic Outlook for Windows ignores them. Readers without the font see a fallback, and in some versions of Outlook that fallback can be Times New Roman. Use a web-safe font for text and, if the brand font matters, show it only in your logo image.
What font size should an email signature use?
12–14 px for the details and 2–4 px larger for your name. Smaller than 11 px is hard to read on phones; legal footers and disclaimers can go down to 10–11 px because they are reference text.
Should my signature use the same font as my emails?
It looks tidier if it does, or at least if both are in the same family (both sans-serif, for example). Apple Mail has an option to force the message font onto your signature; see our Apple Mail guide.
Next: image and logo sizes, or browse email signature templates to choose a layout.
Ready? The free Fairsig generator builds a signature that works in Gmail, Outlook and Apple Mail, in your browser, with no sign-up. Create your signature →