53Fonts

The cheapest way to make a project look unlike everything else is to change the font. One line, and the impression changes completely.

Where to get them: there are a great many good free fonts now. Paid ones exist too, and if the project is serious that's a reasonable spend - a good font costs about as much as lunch and works for years.

The trap I personally fell into: non-Latin alphabets. An enormous number of beautiful fonts are Latin-only. You install one, the English version looks wonderful, you open the Russian one and half the text is drawn in your font and half in the system fallback. It looks broken, because it is broken.

So the rule: if you have text in another alphabet, check it before you fall in love with the font. Open that version and look with your own eyes. Don't be lazy; I was lazy and then rolled it all back.

Second rule: two fonts is the ceiling. One for headings, one for body. Three or more nearly always looks like an accident.