Thick fonts are usually called “bold fonts” or “heavy fonts” because of their heavier font weight, also known as the boldness of the letter strokes. From a technical perspective, font weights vary from 100 to 900, often in steps of one hundred. Each step corresponds with a weight name; for example, 400 often equals Regular.
Shown here is Kijs Thin and SemiBold.
A popular font weight distribution is as follows: 100 = Thin, 200 = ExtraLight, 300 = Light, 400 = Regular, 500 = Medium, 600 = SemiBold, 700 = Bold, 800 = ExtraBold, and 900 = Black. However, type designers can set their numbers in the design process depending on the look they want to achieve.
What are bold fonts?
Font weights Bold, ExtraBold, and Black are often considered “thick” fonts. Fonts often come as font families, meaning they have multiple weights within one family style. Regular and Bold are usually included when you purchase a basic font family, but a professional font family can have up to nine font weights in addition to their corresponding italic weights.
When picking a font and its weight for a design project, note that bold fonts generally make a younger, louder, and more approachable impression. Lighter weights, in return, look more elegant and refined.
High contrast and thick rounded fonts
Bauhaus Soft ExtraBold (800) is a rounded serif font that comes in thin and thick weights, from 100 to 900. Soft is a modern high-contrast typeface with an organic feel—it gets flowier with more font weight. The top right stem corners are rounded, giving the typeface a soft, warm appearance.
Bauhaus Chez Bold (700) is a high-contrast sans serif type. This font also comes in nine weights, including thin and very bold styles. The top corners of the letter stems, and the ball terminals are pronounced and rounded. Chez is a friendly, modern sans-serif type perfect for food and beauty branding.
Bauhaus Goji is a friendly, rounded type with an inky feel. The bolder the weight, the softer the design. The Crocs brand uses a similar font for its wordmark logo to show comfort; the mark is set in all lowercase to emphasize the brand’s social nature.
Thick modern fonts
Bauhaus Bool is a modern, playful type great for branding because it comes with many alternate letter designs, for example, the letter B (see image). Modern letters are pieces of art, and they help graphic designers make their work stand out.
Bauhaus Rail in ExtraBold (800) is a fun, modern sans-serif font that takes the idea of a high-contrast font in a different direction and shows, for example, horizontal bars as strings.
Handwritten fonts with bold weights
Skay is a handwritten bubble font that works best in its thicker weights. The font has only uppercase letters, making it an excellent fit for display type and logo design. Skay’s character is organic, fluid, and flexible.
Lace Rounded is a round version of the Lace font, making it a tad more approachable and friendly. Both Lace and Lace Rounded are in a handwritten script style with monolinear lines and have nine font weights each.
Free, bolder fonts
You can find a large selection of free, bold fonts on sites like Google Webfonts and 1001 Fonts. There, you might like to check out a free personal-use version of our in-house type Lace Rounded.
Google Webfonts only hosts free fonts for personal and commercial use, and the following typefaces are some of my favorites because of their contemporary looks: Bagel Fat One, Cherry Bomb One, and Rammetto One.
Learn how to install fonts in design programs such as Illustrator, Figma, and Cricut.
