How to change fonts in matplotlib (python)?

Say you want Comic Sans for the title and Helvetica for the x label.

csfont = {fontname:Comic Sans MS}
hfont = {fontname:Helvetica}

plt.title(title,**csfont)
plt.xlabel(xlabel, **hfont)
plt.show()

You can also use rcParams to change the font family globally.

 import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
 plt.rcParams[font.family] = cursive
 # This will change to your computers default cursive font

The list of matplotlibs font family arguments is here.

I prefer to employ:

from matplotlib import rc
#rc(font,**{family:sans-serif,sans-serif:[Helvetica]})
rc(font,**{family:serif,serif:[Times]})
rc(text, usetex=True)

The last line ensures that tick labels are also in the correct font.