As a content creator, you’re likely always working to ensure your content is as clear, accessible, and discoverable as possible. Providing captions and subtitles to your audiences is a great way to achieve these goals. However, simply placing captions or subtitles on your content, rather than taking the time to place them properly and make sure they work aesthetically can do more harm than good.
With a vast range of different font types and styles available to you, it can make it tricky to determine the best option to use. Some may not even meet the accessibility benchmarks required to assist those who are deaf or have hearing loss, which is an important consideration.
The goal of captioning or subtitling your content is to enhance the viewing experience for your audience and provide greater equity. You want to maximise the efficacy of your subtitles and captions. So how can you go about finding a solution that isn’t too distracting, but stands out enough so that your captions and subtitles are easy to read and helpful for your audience members?
There are several elements to consider:
- Choice of font
- Size of font
- Font colour and contrast
- Font placement
The effort you put into making the font as legible as possible could be wasted if your captions and subtitles aren’t accurate. Services that rely on automatic speech recognition (ASR) technology to produce captions and subtitles can be riddled with errors making them unusable for accessibility purposes. Professional human or hybrid transcription services, such as those of Take Note, provide 99% accuracy guarantees and should be used instead.
Exploring the differences: Closed captions, open captions, and subtitles
Before jumping into the details of specific font choices, it’s important to understand the purpose of subtitles and captions. Both subtitles and captions can improve the understanding and engagement of video content. The terms are often used interchangeably but there are some fundamental differences in what they are designed to achieve.
Subtitles – focused on translating the spoken word within video content and designed to support those watching in a non-native language. These individuals can hear the audio but need translations in the form of subtitles to understand what is being said.
Captions – designed to provide a visual account of the audio in a video to improve the viewing experience for people who are deaf or hard of hearing. Captions are also valuable to the general public, including those who choose to watch video content on mute or at a low volume, such as those who are on the go, commuting or watching while around others. Captions will include references to sound effects and music which typically aren’t included in subtitles.
There are two main types of captions: closed and open. Open captions are part of the video and can’t be turned off or adjusted by the viewer. iMovie captions are an example of open captions where the content creator has free reign over the font choice, size, colour, and placement. Closed captions can be turned on or off by the user, provided they have been made available for the specific piece of content being viewed. Some types of content such as education, or those used in specific geographical locations, may require captioning before publishing. To avoid any issues, it’s best practice to include captions on all your video content.
The font options available for captions and subtitles will depend on whether you decide to use open or closed captioning and which platforms you’re planning to post your content onto. It’s also worth checking if the platforms you’re planning to use have any restrictions or recommendations when it comes to font choice, as this will save you time in the long run.
Although subtitles and captions serve slightly different purposes, the best fonts for subtitles will usually be the same as the ideal choice for closed caption fonts too.
The best font for captions
There are no universal standard fonts for captions. However, there are some handy tips you can follow to make sure your content is accessible and easy to read for everyone.
Fonts fall into two key groups: serif and non-serif, also known as sans serif. A serif is the small extra stroke that you find at the end of the main strokes that make up a letter.
Here are a few examples of each.
This is a sans-serif font
This is a sans-serif font
This is a serif font
This is a serif font
Sans-serif font is a popular choice for digital content such as web pages. The letters have a more simplified look which can help readability at different scales. Sans serif is also the recommended font type for captions and subtitles, and the option you’ll find on most built-in services across video platforms including YouTube, TikTok and Instagram.
There are a whole host of fonts available. It’s best to stick to well-known and widely used fonts to avoid any compatibility issues with video hosting platforms or streaming services that you decide to use.
Although some font choices may seem ‘fun’ and have a distinct style, readability should be at the heart of your decision. The examples below show that some fonts can be harder to read than others.
Example font
Example font
Some popular font choices which work well for captions and subtitles include:
- Arial
- Helvetica
- Verdana
- Roboto
- Tahoma
Should I use capitals or lowercase for captions and subtitles?
Research shows that people find reading and absorbing lowercase letters quicker and easier than the equivalent text in uppercase letters. Capitalised words can be used for emphasis but treat them sparingly. In a digital age, words written in blocks of all caps CAN SEEM LIKE YOU’RE YELLING.
Words written in all uppercase have a more uniform look. They can work well for headlines and other short forms of content but the lack of contrast in letter size makes words more challenging to scan and understand quickly.
The best subtitle font
If you apply the guidelines for selecting the best closed-captions font, you’ll also identify a good subtitle font. As with captions, there is no recognised standard subtitle font. However, we can look to some popular platforms to discover the common fonts for subtitles being used.
What font is used for subtitles on TV?
In the past, people were most familiar with subtitles through TV and movies watched via a television set. TV subtitle font could be turned on or off when needed via the TV remote and would usually appear at the bottom of the screen. The BBC provides some detailed guidance on how to work with subtitles for TV and online environments, including how to deal with words that might be bleeped out or muted.
Movie subtitle font has often been yellow in an attempt to find a colour that stands out against the majority of backgrounds. If you’ve tried to read yellow text on a white background, you’ll know the problem hasn’t been solved. Movie subtitles also tend to appear at the bottom of the screen allowing viewers to enjoy foreign language films without disrupting the view of the main action.
Modern streaming platforms provide some levels of customisation when it comes to subtitles. For example, the default Netflix subtitle font is Consolas but as a viewer, you can adjust the appearance of subtitles via your account. Options you can control include the font, text size, colour, and if you’d like the text to appear in a coloured box.
What font is used for online subtitles?
With the explosion of video content, subtitles and captions have become much more commonplace. There is a broad range of online use cases to consider including the best font for gaming subtitles or social media. Each platform tends to have a default font but provides the option to choose an alternative from a predefined range.
The default TikTok subtitle font used for the ‘classic’ style option is Proxima Nova. It’s a sans-serif font that’s easy to read. Whereas Roboto has been chosen as the best subtitle font for YouTube by the giant video platform itself.
If you’re selecting a font on behalf of your viewers using one that’s favoured by a popular video platform is a good starting point.
The best font size for captions and subtitles
Subtitles and captions need to be easy to read however you want to make sure that the video content is still visible. If the font is too small, it can be challenging to make out. If the font is too large it can block the viewer from seeing what’s happening on screen. Finding a balance is key.
Most built-in services will use a fixed closed-captioning font size which is designed to work well within the specific platform or app. If you are selecting the font size yourself, consider the screen size people are likely to be using and whether the platform you’re uploading to allows the viewer to adapt the font size.
Selecting the ideal caption and subtitle font colour
In design terms, you’ll hear contrast mentioned. This refers to how visually different the elements of a composition appear. It’s an important concept for captions and subtitles as the text needs to be distinguishable from the background they are on.
On a video, the background can often change from light to dark, making picking a suitable colour that works for the entirety of the content challenging. A background for the text area can help ensure that the text is always visible. White text on a black background is a popular choice that allows the text to stand out, regardless of what’s happening on the rest of the screen.
In addition, bright or neon colours can be hard to read and should be avoided, especially for longer-form content.
Where to place your captions and subtitles
As well as the font choice, the placement of your subtitles and captions is vital in providing a good viewing experience, especially if using open captions on content that you wish to post to multiple platforms. For example, if you place Instagram subtitles or captions for reels too close to the bottom of the screen, they may be blocked when viewed in full-screen mode by general navigation and account information in the app.
You also want to ensure that the text on the screen doesn’t block any important visual elements of your video. Plus, it’s best to stick to the same placement throughout the whole video where you can. If the position of the text jumps around it can be distracting and annoying for your viewers.
Customising your view of closed captions
Platforms offering closed captions sometimes provide the option for the user to customise their view. For example, on YouTube, if captions are available on a video the user can adjust how they are displayed through a series of settings including the font, the size, and the colour.
In some platforms, such as when using the built-in TikTok closed captions, the text size, font, and position are fixed. Whether you’re the creator of the content or a viewer, you can turn the closed captions on and off, but you typically aren’t able to customise how they are displayed.
To begin captioning or subtitling your content with high-quality results, start uploading your files today. We’re also happy to provide you with a quote and additional insights as you look to grow your audience and increase your content’s accessibility.