1. Wellston Modern Sans Serif Fonts
2. Free Modern Serif Fonts

Instant downloads for 6 free Greek, modern, sans-serif fonts. For you professionals, 2 are 100% free for commercial-use! Sans-serif fonts are a favorite font for a modern logo or an easy to read body text for a site. Bold font weights can also make your social media art, pop! Peruse our list of over 40 free sans-serif fonts to give your business site, blog, social media, and print material a free makeover. Browse the commercial free fonts classified as sans serif. Top 10 Most Popular Sans-Serif Fonts ← View all the lists or check out the Top 10 Serif Fonts → Sans-serif typefaces first originated in the eighteenth century but didn’t see widespread use until the nineteenth century.

In typography and lettering, a sans-serif, sans serif, gothic, or simply sans letterform is one that does not have extending features called 'serifs' at the end of strokes.^[1] Sans-serif fonts tend to have less line width variation than serif fonts. In most print, they are often used for headings rather than for body text.^[2] They are often used to convey simplicity and modernity or minimalism.

Sans-serif fonts have become the most prevalent for display of text on computer screens. On lower-resolution digital displays, fine details like serifs may disappear or appear too large. The term comes from the French word sans, meaning 'without' and 'serif' of uncertain origin, possibly from the Dutch word schreef meaning 'line' or pen-stroke.

Before the term 'sans-serif' became common in English typography, a number of other terms had been used. One of these outmoded terms for sans serif was gothic, which is still used in East Asian typography and sometimes seen in font names like News Gothic, Highway Gothic, or Trade Gothic.

1. Too many fonts in one design is not a good thing. It ends up looking too strange. Stick to 2 fonts (one from Serif family and the other from Sans-Serif). Appreciate the mood of the typeface just like colors. And don’t combine different moods together. Try to combine more modern fonts with modern fonts and older fonts with more traditional ones.
2. Modern Serif Fonts 1. Free Serif is probably my favorite serif font at the moment. It’s one of the only fonts where the serifs are not excessive. It’s a neat, clean font with a great weight and looks awesome when the letters are spaced apart.

Sans-serif fonts are sometimes, especially in older documents, used as a device for emphasis, due to their typically blacker type color.

• 1Classification
  • 1.5Other or mixed
• 2History
• 3Other names

Classification[edit]

For the purposes of type classification, sans-serif designs are usually divided into three or four major groups, the fourth being the result of splitting the grotesque category into grotesque and neo-grotesque.^[3][4]

Grotesque[edit]

This group features most of the early (19th century to early 20th) sans-serif designs. Influenced by Didone serif fonts of the period and signpainting traditions, these were often quite solid, bold designs suitable for headlines and advertisements. The early sans-serif typefaces often did not feature a lower case or italics, since they were not needed for such uses. They were sometimes released by width, with a range of widths from extended to normal to condensed, with each style different, meaning to modern eyes they can look quite irregular and eccentric.^[5][6] Grotesque fonts have limited variation of stroke width (often none perceptible in capitals). The terminals of curves are usually horizontal, and many have a spurred 'G' and an 'R' with a curled leg. Capitals tend to be of relatively uniform width. Cap height and ascender height are generally the same to create a more regular effect in texts such as titles with many capital letters, and descenders are often short for tighter linespacing.^[7] Most avoid having a true italic in favour of a more restrained oblique or sloped design, although at least sans-serif true italics were offered.^[8][9]

Examples of grotesque fonts include Akzidenz Grotesk, Venus, News Gothic, Franklin Gothic and Monotype Grotesque. Akzidenz Grotesk Old Face, Knockout, Grotesque No. 9 and Monotype Grotesque are examples of digital fonts that retain more of eccentricities of some of the early sans-serif types.^{[10][11][12][13]} The term realist has also been applied to these designs due to their practicality and simplicity.

Neo-grotesque[edit]

As the name implies, these modern designs consist of a direct evolution of grotesque types. They are relatively straightforward in appearance with limited width variation. Unlike earlier grotesque designs, many were issued in extremely large and versatile families from the time of release, making them easier to use for body text. Similar to grotesque typefaces, neogrotesques often feature capitals of uniform width and a quite 'folded-up' design, in which strokes (for example on the 'c') are curved all the way round to end on a perfect horizontal or vertical. Helvetica is an example of this. Others such as Univers are less regular.

Neo-grotesque type began in the 1950s with the emergence of the International Typographic Style, or Swiss style. Its members looked at the clear lines of Akzidenz Grotesk (1898) as an inspiration to create rational, almost neutral typefaces. In 1957 the release of Helvetica, Univers, and Folio, the first typefaces categorized as neo-grotesque, had a strong impact internationally: Helvetica came to be the most used typeface for the following decades.^[14][b]

Other, later neo-grotesques include Unica, Imago and Rail Alphabet, and in the digital period Acumin, San Francisco and Roboto.^{[16][17][18][19][20][21]}

Geometric[edit]

As their name suggests, Geometric sans-serif typefaces are based on geometric shapes, like near-perfect circles and squares.^[22] Common features are a nearly-exactly circular capital 'O' and a 'single-story' lowercase letter 'a'. The 'M' is often splayed and the capitals of varying width, following the classical model. Of these four categories, geometric fonts tend to be the least useful for body text and often used for headings and small passages of text.

The geometric sans originated in Germany in the 1920s.^[23] Two early efforts in designing geometric types were made by Herbert Bayer and Jakob Erbar, who worked respectively on Universal Typeface (unreleased at the time but revived digitally as Architype Bayer) and Erbar (circa 1925).^[24] In 1927 Futura, by Paul Renner, was released to great acclaim and popularity.^[25]

Geometric sans-serif fonts were popular from the 1920s and 1930s due to their clean, modern design, and many new geometric designs and revivals have been created since.^[c] Notable geometric types of the period include Kabel, Semplicità, Nobel and Metro; more recent designs in the style include ITC Avant Garde, Brandon Grotesque, Gotham and Avenir. Many geometric sans-serif alphabets of the period, such as those created by the Bauhaus art school (1919-1933) and modernist poster artists, were hand-lettered and not cut into metal type at the time.^[27]

A separate inspiration for many types considered 'geometric' in design has been the simplified shapes of letters engraved or stenciled on metal and plastic in industrial use, which often follow a simplified structure and are sometimes known as 'rectilinear' for their use of straight vertical and horizontal lines. Designs considered geometric in principles but which are less descended from the Futura/Erbar/Kabel tradition include Bank Gothic, DIN 1451, Eurostile and Handel Gothic, along with many of the fonts designed by Ray Larabie.^[28][29]

Humanist[edit]

Humanist sans-serifs take inspiration from traditional letterforms, such as Roman square capitals, traditional serif fonts and calligraphy. Many have true italics rather than an oblique, ligatures and even swashes in italic. One of the earliest humanist designs was Edward Johnston's Johnston typeface of c. 1916, and, a decade later, Gill Sans (Eric Gill, 1928).^[30] Edward Johnston, a calligrapher by profession, was inspired by classic letter forms, especially the capital letters on the Column of Trajan.^[31]

Humanist designs vary more than gothic or geometric designs.^[32] Some humanist designs have stroke modulation (strokes that clearly vary in width along their line) or alternating thick and thin strokes. These include most popularly Hermann Zapf's Optima (1958), a typeface expressly designed to be suitable for both display and body text.^[33] Some humanist designs may be more geometric, as in Gill Sans and Johnston (especially their capitals), which like Roman capitals are often based on perfect squares, half-squares and circles, with considerable variation in width. These somewhat architectural designs may feel too stiff for body text.^[30] Others such as Syntax, Goudy Sans and Sassoon Sans more resemble handwriting, serif fonts or calligraphy.

Frutiger, from 1976, has been particularly influential in the development of the modern humanist sans genre, especially designs intended to be particularly legible above all other design considerations. The category expanded greatly during the 1980s and 1990s, partly as a reaction against the overwhelming popularity of Helvetica and Univers and also due to the need for legible fonts on low-resolution computer displays.^{[34][35][36][37]} Designs from this period intended for print use include FF Meta, Myriad, Thesis, Charlotte Sans, Bliss and Scala Sans, while designs created for computer use include Microsoft's Tahoma, Trebuchet, Verdana, Calibri and Corbel, as well as Lucida Grande, Fira Sans and Droid Sans. Humanist sans-serif designs can (if appropriately proportioned and spaced) be particularly suitable for use on screen or at distance, since their designs can be given wide apertures or separation between strokes, which is not a conventional feature on grotesque and neo-grotesque designs.

Other or mixed[edit]

Due to the diversity of sans-serif typefaces, many do not fit neatly into the above categories. For example, Neuzeit S has both neo-grotesque and geometric influences, as does Hermann Zapf's URW Grotesk. Other 'trans-sans' designs include Whitney and Klavika. Sans-serif fonts intended for signage, such as Transport and Highway Gothic used on road signs, may have unusual features to enhance legibility and differentiate characters, such as a lower-case 'L' with a curl or 'i' with serif under the dot.^[38]

Modulated sans-serifs[edit]

A particular subgenre of sans-serifs is those such as Rothbury, Britannic, Radiant, and National Trust with obvious variation in stroke width. These have been called 'modulated' or 'stressed' sans-serifs. They are nowadays often placed within the humanist genre, although they predate Johnston which started the modern humanist genre. These may take inspiration from sources outside printing such as brush lettering or calligraphy.^[39]

History[edit]

Letters without serifs have been common in writing across history, for example in casual, non-monumental epigraphy of the classical period. However, Roman square capitals, the inspiration for much Latin-alphabet lettering throughout history, had prominent serifs. While simple sans-serif letters have always been common in 'uncultured' writing, such as basic handwriting, most artistically created letters in the Latin alphabet, both sculpted and printed, since the Middle Ages have been inspired by fine calligraphy, blackletter writing and Roman square capitals. As a result, printing done in the Latin alphabet for the first three hundred and fifty years of printing was 'serif' in style, whether in blackletter, roman type, italic or occasionally script.

The earliest printing typefaces which omitted serifs were not intended to render contemporary texts, but to represent inscriptions in Ancient Greek and Etruscan. Thus, Thomas Dempster's De Etruria regali libri VII (1723), used special types intended for the representation of Etruscan epigraphy, and in c. 1745, the Caslon foundry made Etruscan types for pamphlets written by Etruscan scholar John Swinton.^[40] Another niche used of a printed sans-serif letterform from in 1786 onwards was a rounded sans-serif script font developed by Valentin Haüy for the use of the blind to read with their fingers.^[41][42][43]

Developing popularity[edit]

Towards the end of the eighteenth century Neoclassicism led to architects increasingly incorporating ancient Greek and Roman designs in contemporary structures. The architect John Soane commonly used sans-serif letters on his drawings and architectural designs.^[44] Soane's inspiration was apparently the inscriptions dedicating the Temple of Vesta in Tivoli, Italy, with minimal serifs.^[44] These were then copied by other artists, and in London sans-serif capitals became popular for advertising, apparently because of the 'astonishing' effect the unusual style had on the public. The lettering style apparently became referred to as 'old Roman' or 'Egyptian' characters, referencing the classical past and a contemporary interest in Ancient Egypt and its blocky, geometric architecture.^[44][48]

Historian James Mosley, the leading expert on early revival of sans-serif letters, has written that 'in 1805 Egyptian letters were happening in the streets of London, being plastered over shops and on walls by signwriters, and they were astonishing the public, who had never seen letters like them and were not sure they wanted to.'^[49] A depiction of the style was shown in the European Magazine of 1805, described as 'old Roman' characters.^[50][51] However, the style did not become used in printing for some more years.^[e] (Early sans-serif signage was not printed from type but hand-painted or carved, since at the time it was not possible to print in large sizes. This makes tracing the descent of sans-serif styles hard, since a trend can arrive in the dated, printed record from a signpainting tradition which has left less of a record or at least no dates.)

The inappropriateness of the name was not lost on the poet Robert Southey, in his satirical Letters from England written in the character of a Spanish aristocrat.^[53][54] It commented: 'The very shopboards must be.. painted in Egyptian letters, which, as the Egyptians had no letters, you will doubtless conceive must be curious. They are simply the common characters, deprived of all beauty and all proportion by having all the strokes of equal thickness, so that those which should be thin look as if they had the elephantiasis.'^[55][44] Similarly, the painter Joseph Farington wrote in his diary on September 13, 1805 of a memorial to Isaac Hawkins Browne in the chapel of Trinity College, Cambridge, engraved 'in what is called Egyptian Characters which to my eye had a disagreeable effect.'^[56][44]

Around 1816, the Ordnance Survey began to use 'Egyptian' lettering, monoline sans-serif capitals, to mark ancient Roman sites. This lettering was printed from copper plate engraving.^[50][43]

Entry into printing[edit]

Around 1816, William Caslon IV produced the first sans-serif printing type in England for the Latin alphabet, a capitals-only face under the title 'Two Lines English Egyptian', where 'Two Lines English' referred to the font's body size, which equals to about 28 points.^[59][60] Although it is known from its appearances in the firm's specimen books, no uses of it from the period have been found; Mosley speculates that it may have been commissioned by a specific client.^[61][f]

A second hiatus in interest in sans-serif appears to have lasted for about twelve years, when the Vincent Figgins foundry of London issued a new sans-serif in 1828.^[63][64] Thereafter sans-serif capitals rapidly began to be issued from London typefounders. Much imitated was the Thorowgood 'grotesque' face of the early 1830s. This was arrestingly bold and highly condensed, quite unlike the classical proportions of Caslon's design, but very suitable for poster typography and similar in aesthetic effect to the slab serif and the (generally wider) 'fat faces' of the period. It also added a lower-case. Similar condensed sans-serif typefaces, often display capitals, became very successful.^[50] Sans-serif printing types began to appear thereafter in France and Germany.^[65][66]

A few theories about early sans-serifs now known to be incorrect may be mentioned here. One is that sans-serifs are based on either 'fat face typefaces' or slab-serifs with the serifs removed.^[67][68] It is now known that the inspiration was more classical antiquity, and sans-serifs appeared before the first dated appearance of slab-serif letterforms in 1810.^[43] The Schelter & Giesecke foundry also claimed during the 1920s to have been offering a sans-serif with lower-case by 1825.^[69][70] Wolfgang Homola dated it in 2004 to 1882 based on a study of Schelter & Giesecke specimens;^[71] Mosley describes this as 'thoroughly discredited'; even in 1986 Walter Tracy described the claimed dates as 'on stylistic grounds..about forty years too early'.^[43][72]

Sans-serif lettering and fonts were popular due to their clarity and legibility at distance in advertising and display use, when printed very large or small. Because sans-serif type was often used for headings and commercial printing, many early sans-serif designs did not feature lower-case letters. Simple sans-serif capitals, without use of lower-case, became very common in uses such as tombstones of the Victorian period in Britain. The term 'grotesque' became commonly used to describe sans-serifs. The term 'grotesque' comes from the Italian word for cave, and was often used to describe Roman decorative styles found by excavation, but had long become applied in the modern sense for objects that appeared 'malformed or monstrous.'^[7]

The first use of sans serif as a running text has been proposed to be the short booklet Feste des Lebens und der Kunst: eine Betrachtung des Theaters als höchsten Kultursymbols (Celebration of Life and Art: A Consideration of the Theater as the Highest Symbol of a Culture),^[73] by Peter Behrens, in 1900.^[74]

Twentieth-century sans-serifs[edit]

Throughout the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries sans-serif types were viewed with suspicion by many printers, especially those of fine book printing, as being fit only for advertisements (if that), and to this day most books remain printed in serif fonts as body text.^[77] This impression would not have been helped by the standard of common sans-serif types of the period, many of which now seem somewhat lumpy and eccentrically-shaped. In 1922, master printer Daniel Berkeley Updike described sans-serif fonts as having 'no place in any artistically respectable composing-room.'^[78] By 1937 he stated that he saw no need to change this opinion in general, though he felt that Gill Sans and Futura were the best choices if sans-serifs had to be used.^[79]

Through the early twentieth century, an increase in popularity of sans-serif fonts took place as more artistic sans-serif designs were released. While he disliked sans-serif fonts in general, the American printer J.L. Frazier wrote of Copperplate Gothic in 1925 that 'a certain dignity of effect accompanies..due to the absence of anything in the way of frills,' making it a popular choice for the stationery of professionals such as lawyers and doctors.^[80] As Updike's comments suggest, the new, more constructed humanist and geometric sans-serif designs were viewed as increasingly respectable, and were shrewdly marketed in Europe and America as embodying classic proportions (with influences of Roman capitals) while presenting a spare, modern image.^{[81][82][83][84][85]} Futura in particular was extensively marketed by Bauer and its American distribution arm by brochure as capturing the spirit of modernity, using the German slogan 'die Schrift unserer Zeit' ('the typeface of our time') and in English 'the typeface of today and tomorrow'; many typefaces were released under its influence as direct clones, or at least offered with alternate characters allowing them to imitate it if desired.^{[86][87][88][89]}

Grotesque sans-serif revival and the International Typographic Style[edit]

In the post-war period, an increase of interest took place in 'grotesque' sans-serifs.^[90][91][92] Writing in The Typography of Press Advertisement (1956), printer Kenneth Day commented that Stephenson Blake's eccentric Grotesque series had returned to popularity for having 'a personality sometimes lacking in the condensed forms of the contemporary sans cuttings of the last thirty years.'^[26] Leading type designer Adrian Frutiger wrote in 1961 on designing a new face, Univers, on the nineteenth-century model: 'Some of these old sans serifs have had a real renaissance within the last twenty years, once the reaction of the 'New Objectivity' had been overcome. A purely geometrical form of type is unsustainable.^[93]' Of this period in Britain, Mosley has commented that in 1960 'orders unexpectedly revived' for Monotype's eccentric Monotype Grotesque design: '[it] represents, even more evocatively than Univers, the fresh revolutionary breeze that began to blow through typography in the early sixties' and 'its rather clumsy design seems to have been one of the chief attractions to iconoclastic designers tired of the..prettiness of Gill Sans'.^[94][95]

By the 1960s, neo-grotesque fonts such as Univers and Helvetica had become popular through reviving the nineteenth-century grotesques while offering a more unified range of styles than on previous designs, allowing a wider range of text to be set artistically through setting headings and body text in a single family.^{[5][96][97][98][99]} The style of design using asymmetric layouts, Helvetica and a grid layout extensively has been called the Swiss or International Typographic Style.

Other names[edit]

Early[edit]

• Egyptian: the name of Caslon's first general-purpose sans-serif printing type; also documented as being used by Joseph Farington to describe seeing the sans serif inscription on John Flaxman's memorial to Isaac Hawkins Brown in 1805,^[50] though today the term is commonly used to refer to slab serif, not sans serif.
• Antique: particularly popular in France;^[40] some families such as Antique Olive, still carry the name.
• Grotesque: popularised by William Thorowgood of Fann Street Foundry from around 1830.^[7][63][100] The name came from the Italian word 'grottesco', meaning 'belonging to the cave'. In Germany, the name became Grotesk.
• Doric
• Gothic: popular with American type founders. Perhaps the first use of the term was due to the Boston Type and Stereotype Foundry, which in 1837 published a set of non-serifed typefaces under that name. It is believed that those were the first sans serif designs to be introduced in America.^[101] The term probably derived from the architectural definition, which is neither Greek nor Roman,^[102] and from the extended adjective term of 'Germany', which was the place where sans-serif typefaces became popular in the 19th to 20th centuries.^[103] Early adopters for the term includes Miller & Richard (1863), J. & R. M. Wood (1865), Lothian, Conner, Bruce McKellar. Although the usage is now rare in the English-speaking world, the term is commonly used in Japan and South Korea; in China they are known by the term heiti (Chinese: 黑體), literally meaning 'black type', which is probably derived from the mistranslation of Gothic as blackletter typeface, even though actual blackletter fonts have serifs.

Recents[edit]

• Lineale, or linear: The term was defined by Maximilien Vox in the VOX-ATypI classification to describe sans-serif types. Later, in British Standards Classification of Typefaces (BS 2961:1967), lineale replaced sans-serif as classification name.
• Simplices: In Jean Alessandrini's désignations préliminaries (preliminary designations), simplices (plain typefaces) is used to describe sans-serif on the basis that the name 'lineal' refers to lines, whereas, in reality, all typefaces are made of lines, including those that are not lineals.^[104]
• Swiss: It is used as a synonym to sans-serif, as opposed to roman (serif). The OpenDocument format (ISO/IEC 26300:2006) and Rich Text Format can use it to specify the sans-serif generic font family name for a font used in a document.^{[105][106][107]} Presumably refers to the popularity of sans-serif grotesque and neo-grotesque types in Switzerland.
• Industrial: used to refer to grotesque and neo-grotesque sans-serifs, that unlike humanist, geometric and decorative designs are not based on 'artistic' principles.^[72][108]

Gallery[edit]

• Dublin 1848, capitals-only heading. Reasonably conventional except for the crossed V-form 'W'.

• Light sans-serif being used for text. Germany, 1914

• German propaganda poster, 1914.

• Small art-noveau flourishes on the 'v' and 'e'. Ljubljana, 1916.

• Italic sans-serif, Dublin, 1916.

• A nearly monoline sans combined with a stroke-modulated sans used for the title. Austrian war bond poster, 1916.

• Broad block capitals. Hungarian film poster, 1918.

• Monoline sans-serif with art-nouveau influences visible in the tilted 'e' and 'a'. Note embedded umlaut at top left for tighter linespacing.

• Art Deco thick block inline sans-serif capitals, with inner details kept very thin. France, 1920s.

• Berthold Block, a thick German sans-serif with shortened descenders, allowing tight linespacing. Switzerland, 1928.

• Artistic sans-serif keeping curves to a minimum (the line 'O Governo do Estado'), Brazil, 1930.

• Lightly modulated sans serif lettering on a 1930s poster, pointed stroke endings suggesting a brush.

• Classic geometric sans-serif capitals, with points on the capital 'A' and 'N'. Australia, 1934.

• Dwiggins' Metrolite and Metroblack fonts, geometric types of the style popular in the 1930s.

• Stencilled lettering apparently based on Futura Black, 1937

• A 1940s American poster. The curve of the 'r' is a common feature in grotesque fonts, but the 'single-story' 'a' is a classic feature of geometric fonts from the 1920s onwards.

• 1952 Jersey holiday events brochure, using the popular Gill Sans-led British style of the period.

• Swiss-style poster using Helvetica, 1964. Tight spacing characteristic of the period.

• Ultra-condensed industrial sans-serif in the style of the 1960s; Berlin 1966.

• Neo-grotesque type, 1972, Switzerland: Helvetica or a close copy. The irregular baseline may be due to using transfers.

• Tightly-spaced ITC Avant Garde; 1976.

• Governmental poster using Univers, 1980

• Anti-nuclear poster, 1982

• 1997 film festival poster, Ankara.

• Pixelated sans-serif inspired by computers, London 1997

• Distorted sans-serif in the 'grunge typography' style, Ankara 2002.

See also[edit]

• San Serriffe, an April fool joke by Guardian newspaper

Notes[edit]

1. ^The original metal type of Akzidenz-Grotesk did not have an oblique; this was added in the 1950s, although many sans-serif obliques of the period are similar.
2. ^Digital publishing expert Florian Hardwig describes the main features of neo-grotesques as being 'consistent details and even text colour.'^[15]
3. ^In this period and since, some sources have distinguished the nineteenth-century 'grotesque/gothic' designs from the 'sans-serifs' (those now categorised as humanist and geometric both) of the twentieth, or used some form of classification that emphasises a different between the groups.^[26]
4. ^Mosley's book on early sans-serifs The Nymph and the Grot is named for the sculpture. The name is a dual reference, also to 'grotesque' being coincidentally a term also applied to early sans-serif fonts, although Mosley suggests that the design does not seem to be a direct source of modern sans-serifs.
5. ^Apparently based on traditions in his industry, master sign-painter James Callingham writes in his textbook 'Sign Writing and Glass Embossing' (1871) that 'What one calls San-serif, another describes as grotesque; what is generally known as Egyptian, is some times called Antique, though it is difficult to say why, seeing that the letters so designated do not date farther back than the close of the last century. Egyptian is perhaps as good a term as could be given to the letters bearing that name, the blocks being characteristic of the Egyptian style of architecture. These letters were first used by sign-writers at the close of the last century, and were not introduced in printing till about twenty years later. Sign-writers were content to call them “block letters,” and they are sometimes so-called at the present day; but on their being taken in hand by the type founders, they were appropriately named Egyptian. The credit of having introduced the ordinary square or san-serif letters also belongs to the sign-writer, by whom they were employed half a century before the type founder gave them his attention, which was about the year 1810.'^[52][44]
6. ^The matrices used to cast the type also survive, although at least some characters were recut slightly later. Historian John A. Lane, who has examined surviving Caslon specimens and the matrices, suggests that the design is actually slightly earlier and may date to around 1812-4, noting that it appears in some undated but apparently earlier specimens.^[62]
7. ^News Gothic's oblique was actually designed later than the original design, although many nineteenth-century sans-serifs are similar.

References[edit]

1. ^'sans serif' in The New Encyclopædia Britannica. Chicago: Encyclopædia Britannica Inc., 15th edn., 1992, Vol. 10, p. 421.
2. ^Serifs more used for headlinesArchived 2007-09-28 at the Wayback Machine
3. ^Childers; Griscti; Leben (January 2013). '25 Systems for Classifying Typography: A Study in Naming Frequency'(PDF). The Parsons Journal for Information Mapping. The Parsons Institute for Information Mapping. V (1). Retrieved 23 May 2014.
4. ^Baines, Phil; Haslam, Andrew (2005), Type and Typography, Laurence King Publishing, p. 51, ISBN9781856694377, retrieved May 23, 2014
   In British Standards Classification of Typefaces (BS 2961:1967), the following are defined:
   Grotesque: Lineale typefaces with 19th-century origins. There is some contrast in thickness of strokes. They have squareness of curve, and curling close-set jaws. The R usually has a curled leg and the G is spurred. The ends of the curved strokes are usually oblique. Examples include the Stephenson Blake Grotesques, Condensed Sans No. 7, Monotype Headline Bold.
   Neo-grotesque: Lineale typefaces derived from the grotesque. They have less stroke contrast and are more regular in design. The jaws are more open than in the true grotesque and the g is often open-tailed. The ends of the curved strokes are usually horizontal. Examples include Edel/Wotan, Univers, Helvetica.
   Humanist: Lineale typefaces based on the proportions of inscriptional Roman capitals and Humanist or Garalde lower-case, rather than on early grotesques. They have some stroke contrast, with two-storey a and g. Examples include Optima, Gill Sans, Pascal.
   Geometric: Lineale typefaces constructed on simple geometric shapes, circle or rectangle. Usually monoline, and often with single-storey a. Examples include Futura, Erbar, Eurostile.
5. ^ ^abShinn, Nick. 'Uniformity'(PDF). Nick Shinn. Graphic Exchange. Retrieved 1 July 2015.
6. ^Coles, Stephen. 'Helvetica alternatives'. FontFeed (archived). Archived from the original on 2 January 2013. Retrieved 1 July 2015.CS1 maint: BOT: original-url status unknown (link)
7. ^ ^abcBerry, John. 'A Neo-Grotesque Heritage'. Adobe Systems. Retrieved 15 October 2015.
8. ^ ^abSpecimens of type, borders, ornaments, brass rules and cuts, etc. : catalogue of printing machinery and materials, wood goods, etc. American Type Founders Company. 1897. p. 340. Retrieved 17 August 2015.
9. ^'Italic Gothic'. Fonts in Use. Retrieved 25 February 2017.
10. ^Hoefler & Frere-Jones. 'Knockout'. Hoefler & Frere-Jones. Retrieved 1 July 2015.
11. ^Hoefler & Frere-Jones. 'Knockout sizes'. Hoefler & Frere-Jones.
12. ^'Knockout styles'. Hoefler & Frere-Jones. Retrieved 1 July 2015.
13. ^Lippa, Domenic. '10 favourite fonts'. The Guardian. Retrieved 1 July 2015.
14. ^Meggs 2011, pp. 376-377.
15. ^@hardwig (16 June 2019). 'The mid-20th century saw a reappraisal of these classic sans serif forms. Fueled by modernist ideas, they were rethought and redrawn, now with consistent details and even text color. Transferred into systematic families of numerous weights and widths, the neo-grotesque became an essential ingredient of the International Typographic Style' (Tweet) – via Twitter.
16. ^Adi Kusrianto. Pengantar Tipografi. Elex Media Komputindo. p. 66. ISBN978-979-27-8132-8.
17. ^Lagerkvist, Love. 'American Football'. Fonts In Use. Retrieved 18 June 2017. Imago [is] a relatively obscure neo-grotesk released by Berthold in the early ’80s.
18. ^Slimbach, Robert. 'Using Acumin'. Acumin microsite. Adobe Systems. Retrieved 6 January 2016.
19. ^Twardoch, Slimbach, Sousa, Slye (2007). Arno Pro(PDF). San Jose: Adobe Systems. Retrieved 14 August 2015.CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
20. ^Coles, Stephen. 'New Additions: November 2015'. Identifont. Retrieved 8 January 2016.
21. ^'Fontshop lists: Neo-grotesque'. FontShop. Retrieved 18 June 2017.
22. ^Ulrich, Ferdinand. 'A short intro to the geometric sans'. FontShop. Retrieved 17 December 2016.
23. ^Ulrich, Ferdinand. 'Types of their time – A short history of the geometric sans'. FontShop. Retrieved 19 August 2015.
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45. ^John L Walters (2 September 2013). Fifty Typefaces That Changed the World: Design Museum Fifty. Octopus. pp. 1913–5. ISBN978-1-84091-649-2.
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50. ^ ^abcdJames Mosley, The Nymph and the Grot: the revival of the sanserif letter, London: Friends of the St Bride Printing Library, 1999
51. ^'L. Y.'. 'To the Editor of the European Magazine'. European Magazine. Retrieved 15 October 2016.
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53. ^L. Parramore (13 October 2008). Reading the Sphinx: Ancient Egypt in Nineteenth-Century Literary Culture. Springer. pp. 22–3. ISBN978-0-230-61570-0.
54. ^Jason Thompson (30 April 2015). Wonderful Things: A History of Egyptology 1: From Antiquity to 1881. The American University in Cairo Press. pp. 251–2. ISBN978-977-416-599-3.
55. ^Southey, Robert (1808). Letters from England: by Don Manual Alvarez Espriella. pp. 274–5.
56. ^Farington, Joseph; Greig, James (1924). The Farington Diary, Volume III, 1804-1806. London: Hutchinson & Co. p. 109. Retrieved 15 October 2016.
57. ^Caslon, William. [Specimens of printing types] (untitled specimen book). London: William Caslon IV. Retrieved 6 March 2019.
58. ^Specimen of Plain & Ornamental Types from the Foundry of V. & J. Figgins. London: V. & J. Figgins Letterfounders. 1846. Retrieved 16 October 2016.
59. ^Tracy, Walter (2003). Letters of credit : a view of type design. Boston: David R. Godine. ISBN9781567922400.
60. ^Tam, Keith (2002). Calligraphic tendencies in the development of sanserif types in the twentieth century(PDF). Reading: University of Reading (MA thesis).
61. ^Simon Loxley (12 June 2006). Type: The Secret History of Letters. I.B.Tauris. pp. 36–8. ISBN978-1-84511-028-4.
62. ^'The Song of the Sans Serif'. The Centre for Printing History and Culture. Retrieved 16 October 2016.
63. ^ ^abMosley, James; Shinn, Nick. 'Two Lines English Egyptian (comments on forum)'. Typophile. Retrieved 30 October 2017. [T]he Figgins ‘Sans-serif’ types (so called) are well worth looking at. In fact it might be said to be that with these types the Figgins typefoundry brought the design into typography, since the original Caslon Egyptian appeared only briefly in a specimen and has never been seen in commercial use. One size of the Figgins Sans-serif appears in a specimen dated 1828 (the unique known copy is in the University Library, Amsterdam).…It is a self-confident design, which in the larger sizes abandons the monoline structure of the Caslon letter for a thick-thin modulation which would remain a standard model through the 19th century, and can still be seen in the ATF Franklin Gothic. Note that there is no lower-case. That would come, after 1830, with the innovative condensed ‘Grotesque’ of the Thorowgood foundry, which provided a model for type that would get large sizes into the lines of posters. It gave an alternative name to the design, and both the new features – the condensed proportions and the addition of lower-case – broke the link with Roman inscriptional capitals…But the antiquarian associations of the design were still there, at least in the smaller sizes, as the specimen of the Pearl size (four and three quarters points) of Figgins’s type shows. It uses the text of the Latin inscription prepared for the rebuilt London Bridge, which was opened on 1 August 1831.
64. ^Lane, John A.; Lommen, Mathieu; de Zoete, Johan (1998). Dutch Typefounders' Specimens from the Library of the KVB and other collections in the Amsterdam University Library with histories of the firms represented. De Graaf. p. 15. Retrieved 4 August 2017. Figgins 1828 [is] one of two known copies, but with the first known appearance of the world's second sans-serif type, not in the other copy
65. ^Morlighem, Sebastien (September 30, 2016). Nineteenth-century sans serif typefaces in France(PDF) (Speech). The Song of the Sans-serif. Birmingham City University.
66. ^Pané-Farré, Pierre. 'Affichen-Schriften'. Forgotten Shapes. Retrieved 21 July 2019.
67. ^Meggs 2011, p. 155.
68. ^Handover, Phyllis Margaret (1958). 'Grotesque Letters'. Monotype Newsletter, also printed in Motif as 'Letters without Serifs'.
69. ^Lawson, Alexander S., Anatomy of a Typeface, David R. Godine, Publisher, Boston, Massachusetts, 1990, ISBN0-87923-333-8, p. 296.
70. ^Handbuch der Schriftarten. Leipzig: Seeman. 1926.
71. ^Homola, Wolfgang. 'Type design in the age of the machine. The 'Breite Grotesk' by J. G. Schelter & Giesecke'(PDF). University of Reading (archived). Archived from the original on 12 January 2011. Retrieved 17 January 2018.CS1 maint: BOT: original-url status unknown (link)
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73. ^Behrens, Peter (1900), Feste des Lebens und der Kunst: eine Betrachtung des Theaters als höchsten Kultursymbols (in German), Eugen Diederichs
74. ^Meggs 2011, p. 242.
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76. ^'Promotional Poster, 1928'. Red List. Monotype.
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78. ^Updike, Daniel Berkeley (1922). Printing types : their history, forms, and use; a study in survivals vol 2 (1st ed.). Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. p. 243. Retrieved 17 August 2015.
79. ^Lawson, Alexander (1990). Anatomy of a typeface (1st ed.). Boston: Godine. p. 330. ISBN9780879233334.
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84. ^East Coast Joys: Tom Purvis and the LNER
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• Bringhurst, Robert (2004), The Elements of Typographic Style (3rd ed.), Hartley & Marks Publishers, ISBN9780881792065

• Haralambous, Yannis (28 November 2007), Fonts & Encodings, O'Reilly Media, ISBN9780596102425
• Lawson, Alexander (1990), Anatomy of a Typeface, David R. Godine, Publisher, ISBN9780879233334

• Lyons, Martyn (2011), Books: A Living History (2nd ed.), Getty Publications, ISBN9781606060834

• Meggs, Philip B.; Purvis, Alston (2011), Meggs' History of Graphic Design (5th ed.), Wiley, ISBN9781118017760

• Tracy, Walter (1986), Letters of Credit: A View of Type Design, David R. Godine, Publisher, ISBN9780879236366

• Kupferschmid, Indra, Some Type Genres Explained

External links[edit]

• Grotesque: The Birth of The Modern Sans Serif in The Types of The Nineteenth Century (Lecture at Cooper Union by Sara Soskolne)

These are the 10 best sans-serif web fonts:

1. Open Sans

Open Sans was designed by Steve Matteson and comes in 10 different styles, from light to extra bold. The font itself is very simple, professional, and clean, yet it’s very exciting. It has many subtle characteristics such as the capital J with a descender that goes beyond the baseline. Open Sans looks beautiful in small and larger sizes, but the extra bold variation is pure perfection.

There is also an Open Sans Condensed version that comes in 3 styles. Personally, I feel like it is a bit too condensed so it’s not very legible at small sizes, but still does the job in most cases.

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2. Roboto

Roboto was designed by Christian Robertson and is the official font family of the Android operating system. Roboto comes in 12 styles with weights ranging from thin to ultra-bold. The font is very modern and essentially combines the best aspects of classic fonts such as Helvetica, Arial, and Univers. Regular Roboto font feels slightly condensed so it allows more characters per line.

There are two other excellent variations of Roboto, including Roboto Condensed which has 6 styles and Roboto Slab with 4 styles.

3. Lato

Lato is perhaps the most unique and interesting sans-serif font on this list. It was designed by Łukasz Dziedzic and includes 10 styles. It goes from thin all the way to ultra-bold. The letters in Lato have some unique curves which can only be seen in larger sizes. That’s not to say that Lato doesn’t work well in smaller sizes, it’s just that it loses many interesting properties when done so.

4. PT Sans

PT Sans was designed by ParaType and it comes in 4 styles, normal and bold and italic versions of each. Although it seems like 4 styles are just not enough, they are perfectly fine for most people. Of course, if you’re a designer, you’ll cringe at the thought of only 4 styles and just 2 weights. Helvetica Neue has made us a bit spoiled in that regard. PT Sans has some funky characteristics such as the capital Q’s tail, which sits outside the letter and it makes the letter look more dynamic.

5. Source Sans Pro

Designed by Paul D. Hunt, Source Sans Pro is the ultimate corporate-style sans-serif web font. It comes in a whopping 12 different styles with weights from extra-light all the way to ultra-bold. The font itself is not the most exciting one on this list, but it is probably the most professional. It works in pretty much every situation and it keeps legibility with every size.

6. Exo

Exo is a contemporary geometric font family designed by Natanael Gama. It was initially funded through a kickstarter project, and shortly afterwards released for free to the world. Exo has 18 styles, so you shouldn’t run into issues with not having the perfect weight. The only issue with Exo is that it tends to be a little hard to read when small, and that’s partially because it has many curves and shapes in its letterforms.

7. Exo 2

Exo 2 is essentially the next version of the original Exo font. Very similar to the original, but it is a lot more legible at smaller sizes. So if you are planning on using the font in the body copy, Exo 2 is definitely a better solution. Exo 2 achieves the improved legibility by removing many of the fine intricacies which exist in the original Exo.

8. Ubuntu

Designed by Dalton Maag for use in the Ubuntu operating system, Ubuntu is a humanist-style font that’s popular for being very rounded and quirky. The curves in most characters meet the stem directly at the end so there’s no sign of any serif or ear. Ubuntu has 8 styles with weights from light to bold.

If you’re looking for a condensed or monospaced font, there is also Ubuntu Condensed and Ubuntu Mono.

9. Istok Web

Istok Web was designed by Andrey V. Panov and includes only normal, bold, and italic version of each weight. So if you’re looking for many different weights, this font is not for you, however, if you’re looking for a less serious, yet professional typeface, then I’d recomment trying Istok Web. This font looks great large or small and keeps legibility well.

10. Nobile

Nobile is another font that comes in only 2 weights and 4 styles, but it is in this list because it is a spectacular font. It was designed by Vernon Adams and has a pretty tall x-height so it reads incredibly well at small sizes.

Read all of Haris Bacic's articles on AllBusiness.com.

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When it comes to web fonts, designers have many options to choose from. Google Fonts library has over 600 font families; however, many of those are unversatile and unsuitable for body copy. I have chosen the selected fonts based on quality, legibility, versatility, and number of available styles and weights.

These are the 10 best sans-serif web fonts:

February 1, 2005. Star plus serials online.

1. Open Sans

Open Sans was designed by Steve Matteson and comes in 10 different styles, from light to extra bold. The font itself is very simple, professional, and clean, yet it’s very exciting. It has many subtle characteristics such as the capital J with a descender that goes beyond the baseline. Open Sans looks beautiful in small and larger sizes, but the extra bold variation is pure perfection.

There is also an Open Sans Condensed version that comes in 3 styles. Personally, I feel like it is a bit too condensed so it’s not very legible at small sizes, but still does the job in most cases.

More AllBusiness:

2. Roboto

Roboto was designed by Christian Robertson and is the official font family of the Android operating system. Roboto comes in 12 styles with weights ranging from thin to ultra-bold. The font is very modern and essentially combines the best aspects of classic fonts such as Helvetica, Arial, and Univers. Regular Roboto font feels slightly condensed so it allows more characters per line.

There are two other excellent variations of Roboto, including Roboto Condensed which has 6 styles and Roboto Slab with 4 styles.

Wellston Modern Sans Serif Fonts

3. Lato

Lato is perhaps the most unique and interesting sans-serif font on this list. It was designed by Łukasz Dziedzic and includes 10 styles. It goes from thin all the way to ultra-bold. The letters in Lato have some unique curves which can only be seen in larger sizes. That’s not to say that Lato doesn’t work well in smaller sizes, it’s just that it loses many interesting properties when done so.

4. PT Sans

PT Sans was designed by ParaType and it comes in 4 styles, normal and bold and italic versions of each. Although it seems like 4 styles are just not enough, they are perfectly fine for most people. Of course, if you’re a designer, you’ll cringe at the thought of only 4 styles and just 2 weights. Helvetica Neue has made us a bit spoiled in that regard. PT Sans has some funky characteristics such as the capital Q’s tail, which sits outside the letter and it makes the letter look more dynamic.

Free Modern Serif Fonts

5. Source Sans Pro

Designed by Paul D. Hunt, Source Sans Pro is the ultimate corporate-style sans-serif web font. It comes in a whopping 12 different styles with weights from extra-light all the way to ultra-bold. The font itself is not the most exciting one on this list, but it is probably the most professional. It works in pretty much every situation and it keeps legibility with every size.

6. Exo

Exo is a contemporary geometric font family designed by Natanael Gama. It was initially funded through a kickstarter project, and shortly afterwards released for free to the world. Exo has 18 styles, so you shouldn’t run into issues with not having the perfect weight. The only issue with Exo is that it tends to be a little hard to read when small, and that’s partially because it has many curves and shapes in its letterforms.

7. Exo 2

Exo 2 is essentially the next version of the original Exo font. Very similar to the original, but it is a lot more legible at smaller sizes. So if you are planning on using the font in the body copy, Exo 2 is definitely a better solution. Exo 2 achieves the improved legibility by removing many of the fine intricacies which exist in the original Exo.

8. Ubuntu

Designed by Dalton Maag for use in the Ubuntu operating system, Ubuntu is a humanist-style font that’s popular for being very rounded and quirky. The curves in most characters meet the stem directly at the end so there’s no sign of any serif or ear. Ubuntu has 8 styles with weights from light to bold.

If you’re looking for a condensed or monospaced font, there is also Ubuntu Condensed and Ubuntu Mono.

9. Istok Web

Istok Web was designed by Andrey V. Panov and includes only normal, bold, and italic version of each weight. So if you’re looking for many different weights, this font is not for you, however, if you’re looking for a less serious, yet professional typeface, then I’d recomment trying Istok Web. This font looks great large or small and keeps legibility well.

10. Nobile

Nobile is another font that comes in only 2 weights and 4 styles, but it is in this list because it is a spectacular font. It was designed by Vernon Adams and has a pretty tall x-height so it reads incredibly well at small sizes.

Read all of Haris Bacic's articles on AllBusiness.com.

Related Articles on AllBusiness:

For more great small business articles such as The Top 25 Home-Based Business Ideas and Keeping Your Business Ideas Confidential, visit AllBusiness.com and AllBusiness Experts. For local business information on 15 million businesses, be sure to check out InBusiness.com.