My favourite typeface pairings (2026)

A lot of water has passed under the bridge since I posted my original list of favourite typeface pairings in 2023, so here’s an update.

A few things to note:

  • The list below covers only the typefaces I enjoy writing in the most, along the heading typefaces I usually pair them with.

  • Happily, the list of honourable mentions in each section covers most of the typefaces I enjoy reading in as well. I do occasionally use these typefaces for writing, but only when the need arises.

  • Within each section, typefaces are listed in alphabetical order.

  • Paid typefaces are flagged with “(%)” after their name.

  • The first time I mention a typeface I’ve added a link to where you can download or purchase it, or just find out more about it.

In case you’re interested, I have a separate post about my favourite ebook typefaces and an ongoing series on cool type pairings I’ve found on the web.

For completeness’ sake, I should say that I don’t always pair typefaces. Sometimes it’s just best to use the same typefaces for headings and titles as well :)

Serifs

I do most of my writing in serif typefaces using LibreOffice.

Calluna

I almost always pair Calluna ($) with Calluna Sans ($). If I hadn’t purchased Calluna and Calluna Sans together, I’d probably pair Calluna with Whitney ($) for its elegance, Neue Montreal ($) for its neutrality, or Brother 1816 ($) for its geometric elegance.

Crimson Pro

I usually pair Crimson Pro with Work Sans since the two have a similar vibe or with Nebula Sans for a slightly more elegant vibe. Other good pairing options are Avenir Next ($) for its elegant geometric nature and Fact ($) for its squarish geometric nature (which provides a nice contrast to Crimson Pro).

Crimson Pro is a modern interpretation of Garamond. Nebula Sans is a version of Source Sans 3 that’s been adjusted to look like Whitney. Fact is a modern interpretation of Frutiger.

ETbb

I usually pair ETbb with Public Sans or Nimbus Sans, both of which are on the friendlier side of neutral. Other good pairing options are Brother 1816 ($) for is geometric elegance and Neue Montreal ($) for its slightly-friendly neutrality.

That said, when I’m using ETbb as a reading typeface, I almost always pair it with itself.

ETbb is a version of ET Book, Edward Tufte’s modern interpretation of Bembo. Public Sans is my favourite modern interpretation of Franklin Gothic. Nimbus Sans is a version of Helvetica that’s a little more like Univers, which I really like. Neue Montreal is a great, slightly friendlier alternative to Helvetica.

Goodchild

I almost always pair Goodchild ($) with Nicholas ($) since Nicholas is the “tight but not touching” headline version of Goodchild. Another good pairing option is Hint ($) since that adds a touch of neutral elegance.

Goodchild is a modern interpretation of Jenson.

Mercury

I almost always pair Mercury ($) with Whitney ($) or Whitney Narrow ($). Other good pairing options are Metropolis ($) for its neutrality and Calluna Sans ($) for its elegance. The Mercury + Whitney combo is my default in LibreOffice Writer.

Metropolis is an interpretation of Gotham, the latter being from the same type foundry as Mercury and Whitney.

Source Serif 4

I almost always pair Source Serif 4 with Source Sans 3. Other good pairing options are Fira Sans to add a bit more character, Merriweather Sans to add a bit more elegance, and Public Sans to add a more classic, friendly vibe. The Source Serif 4 + Source Sans 3 combo is what I usually use when sending an editable document to someone (with fonts embedded).

Public Sans is my favourite modern interpretation of Franklin Gothic.

Stempel Garamond

I pair Stempel Garamond ($) with Rethink Sans since they have a similar vibe or with Nebula Sans for its solid elegance. Other good pairing options are Jost* for its geometric elegance and Cabin for its geometric friendliness. Stempel Garamond also works well with something neutral like Helvetica.

Stempel Garamond is a modern interpretation of Garamond. I’m not a big user of Garamond, but this version is my favourite. Rethink Sans is a fork of DM Sans, which itself is a fork of Poppins. Jost* is a modern interpretation of Futura. Cabin is a modern interpretation of Gill Sans.

TT Jenevers

If I’m not pairing TT Jenevers ($) with itself (usually its Extra Bold weight), I pair TT Jenevers with Cooper Hewitt for its classic, geometric vibe. Other good pairing options are Merriweather Sans which adds a bit of geometric elegance, Public Sans which adds a bit of friendliness, and Whitney ($) which adds a bit of friendly elegance.

Willy Caslon

I pair Willy Caslon ($) with Public Sans, since they both have the modernised-classic vibe. Other good pairing options are Neue Montreal ($) for its friendly neutrality, Neue Haas Unica ($) for its warm neutrality, and Trade Gothic Next ($) for its classic, friendly vibe.

Willy Caslon is a modern interpretation of Caslon. Public Sans is a modern interpretation of Franklin Gothic. Neue Montreal is a modern interpretation of Helvetica. Neue Haas Unica is modern interpretation of Unica, which was an amalgam of Univers and Helvetica. Trade Gothic Next is a version of News Gothic, which is the regular-weight version of the original Franklin Gothic.

Honourable mentions

These are the body text typefaces I use for writing only when the need arises, along with the typefaces I like to pair them with.

Finally, I should mention that, even though I don’t currently use these typefaces (they’re on my wish list), the Untitled Serif ($) + Untitled Sans ($) pairing is excellent.

Sans serifs

Calluna Sans

I almost always pair Calluna Sans ($) with Calluna ($). If I hadn’t purchased Calluna Sans and Calluna together, I’d probably pair Calluna with Mercury ($) or Heuristica for their authoritativeness or Gentium (probably Extra Bold) for its warmer vibe.

Heuristica is an extended version of Utopia and is a good, free alternative to Mercury.

Fact

I usually pair Fact ($) with Bitter since the letterforms of both are based on rounded rectangles. Other good pairing options are Caladea for its friendliness, Faustina for its modern rounded-rectangular warmth, and Mercury ($) for its authoritativeness.

Fact is a modern interpretation of Frutiger.

General Sans

I usually pair General Sans with At Hauss ($) since they’re both quite similar (ie At Hauss could almost pass as the display version of General Sans). Other good pairing options are Jost* for its geometric sharpness, Charis for its modern friendliness, and Sentient for old-school its charm and warmth.

Jost* is a modern interpretation of Futura. At Hauss may be a paid typeface, but its non-commercial version costs only €9!

Hint

I usually pair Hint ($) with Emy Slab ($) since they’re both slightly elegant but otherwise solid typefaces. Other good pairing options are Editorial New ($) to add some modern style, Audela ($) to add a little chunkier solidity, and Calluna ($) to add some friendlier style.

Hint is my preferred alternative to Avenir.

Ideal Sans

I almost always pair Ideal Sans ($) with Sentinel ($) since they both have the same vibe and are from the same type foundry. Another good pairing option is Metropolis for its modern solidity.

Metropolis is an interpretation of Gotham, the latter being from the same type foundry as Ideal Sans and Sentinel.

Nebula Sans

I usually pair Nebula Sans with Mercury ($) since they have a similar vibe or with Clab ($) if I want a slightly more solid vibe. Other good pairing options are Goodchild ($) for its modern elegance and Heuristica for its modern friendliness.

Nebula Sans is a version of Source Sans 3 that’s been adjusted to look like Whitney. Heuristica is an extended version of Utopia and is a good, free alternative to Mercury.

Officer Sans

I pair Officer Sans (free) with itself or with Caladea for its friendliness.

You can get the basic version of Office Sans for free, but there is also a full Officer Sans family that you can purchase.

Public Sans

If I’m not pairing Public Sans with itself, I usually pair it with Sentient since they have a similar vibe (friendly, classic). Other good pairing options are Georgia (or Gelasio) for its retro charm, Roboto Slab for its solidity, and Heuristica for its modern friendliness.

Public Sans is my favourite modern interpretation of Franklin Gothic. Gelasio is an open source version of Georgia. Heuristica is an extended version of Utopia and is a good, free alternative to Mercury.

Rig Sans

If I’m not pairing Rig Sans ($) with itself, I usually pair it with Sentient since the latter adds a bit of classic charm to the text. Other good pairing potions are Literata TT Subhead for its solid warmth, Clab ($) for its elegant authoritativeness, and Goodchild ($) for its modern elegance.

Rig Sans is the typeface I go to every time I’m tempted to use something like Verdana.

Source Sans 3

I almost always pair Source Sans 3 with Source Serif 4 since they’re part of the same family. Other good pairing options are Manuale for its rounded-rectangular sharpness, Roboto Slab for its solidity, and Charis for its modern friendliness.

Charis is an updated version of Charter.

Whitney

I almost always pair Whitney ($) with Mercury ($) since they have a similar vibe. Other good pairing options are Sentinel ($) for its old-school vibe, Metropolis for its solidity, and Goodchild ($) for its modern elegance.

Metropolis is an interpretation of Gotham, the latter being from the same type foundry as Whitney and Sentinel.

Honourable mentions

These are the body text typefaces I use for writing only when the need arises, along with the typefaces I like to pair them with.

Finally, as mentioned in the serif section above, even though I don’t currently use these typefaces (they’re on my wish list), the Untitled Sans ($) + Untitled Serif ($) pairing is excellent.

Monospace

I’m only including this section for completeness’ sake because, whenever I use a monospace typeface, I pair it with itself.

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

The monospace typefaces I use most often are JetBrains Mono, Berkeley Mono, and Cascadia Code. I will also occasionally use Drafting* Mono, At Textual, and Clack.

Concluding thoughts

Sorry for the long post – I had a lot to get through!

If you’ve made it all the way to the end, tell me what your favourite or go-to typeface pairings are.

My favourite ebook typefaces

Since I’ve been asked several times what my favourite ebook typefaces are, I figured I should provide a more comprehensive answer instead of just replying to folks individually in the comments or on social media.

Context: where I read my ebooks

Like most people, I started reading ebooks on a Kindle ereader, though I have since moved on to a Kobo ereader.

Over time I have also compiled a fairly large collection of DRM-free ebooks.

Screenshot of a folder on a computer showing 29 subfolders of books and book series by author Cory Doctorow.

I read these downloaded ebooks in one of three ways:

  • Transfer them to my Kobo ereader.

  • Read them on my Linux computers using Foliate.

  • Read them on my Android devices using ReadEra.

ReadEra is great, by the way, and I even purchased ReadEra Premium (for one-time fee of $24) since that supports the developer financially and, relevant to today’s topic, also lets you add your own fonts to the app.

First-choice typefaces

The typefaces I use to read almost all my ebooks are Bookerly (download) and Literata (download basic, download full family)

Graphic showing the opening paragraph from Naomi Novak’s book A Deadly Education set in the Bookerly and Literata typefaces.

I use Bookerly on my Kindle, Literata on my Kobo, and I switch between the two when reading in Foliate and ReadEra.

Second-choice typefaces

New books

If, for some reason, I don’t want to use Bookerly or Literata, my second choices are usually Caecilia (purchase) or Bitter (download).

Graphic showing the opening paragraph from Naomi Novak’s book A Deadly Education set in the Caecilia and Bitter typefaces.

Caecilia is Kindle-only; Bitter I can use on Kobo, Foliate, and ReadEra.

If I don’t want to use a slab serif, however, I usually go with Vollkorn (download) or Merriweather (download), depending on the vibe of the book I’m reading.

Graphic showing the opening paragraph from Naomi Novak’s book A Deadly Education set in the Vollkorn and Merriweather typefaces.

Classic books

Those are all great typefaces for reading books in my favourite genres of science fiction, fantasy, crime, mystery, and thriller. However, it just doesn’t feel right to read ebook versions of classic books or older books using a slab serif or otherwise modern typeface.

In an earlier post, I’d listed the four Latin-script typefaces that come to mind when you think of what older books, magazines, and other text-heavy material used to be printed in:

When I want to read the classics, poetry, or just generally older books, these are the typefaces I turn to.

Of those typefaces, the ones I like to read ebooks in are Bembo and Caslon. The specific digital versions I use are ETbb (download) for Bembo and Willy Caslon (purchase) for Caslon.

Graphic showing the opening paragraph from Margaret Mitchell’s book Gone with the Wind set in the ETbb and Willy Caslon typefaces.

Another good Bembo version/alternative that I like is Spectral (download), though I don’t use this very often.

Much as I like Garamond and Baskerville, for reading ebooks they just don’t do it for me.

Graphic showing the opening paragraph from Margaret Mitchell’s book Gone with the Wind set in the Stempel Garamond and Libre Baskerville typefaces.

If Garamond and Baskerville do float your boat though, my recommended free(ish) versions of those typefaces are:

The Conversation website is a great example of Libre Baskerville in action, fyi.

Children’s books

While I rarely read children’s books these days, I did go back and read some of the Enid Blyton books I first read when I was as a child. The typefaces I use when reading those ebooks were Besley* (download) and Century Schoolbook (download).

Graphic showing the opening paragraph from Enid Blyton’s book Circus of Adventure set in the Besley* and Century Schoolbook typefaces.

Typefaces I don’t use

I know this is a post about the typefaces I do use, but I should also mention a couple of default and popular ereader typefaces that I actively don’t use.

For example, I almost never use a sans serif typeface unless the book – usually a textbook or non-fiction book – specifically calls for it.

And I don’t use any of the other serif typefaces available on most ereader devices and ebook reading software – typefaces like Palatino, Rakuten Serif, Noto Serif, Georgia, and Malabar (which you used to get on older Kobo ereaders).

Graphic showing the opening paragraph from Naomi Novak’s book A Deadly Education set in the Palatino and Rakuten Serif typefaces.

Rakuten Serif is the default serif typeface on Kobo ereaders, by the way. I did read a couple of books using this typeface when I first got my Kobo, but I never got comfortable with how the text looked. This typeface is too much like Baskerville for my liking (at least when it comes to reading ebooks).

Graphic showing the name “Quetzalcoatl” set in the Libre Baskerville, Rakuten Serif, and Novela typefaces.

The one ereader typeface I haven’t used, but would like to at some point, is Amasis, which is a typeface available on Nook ereaders.

Final thoughts

It makes sense that the typefaces I’ve settled on were designed for reading on screens, and specifically for reading ebooks on ereader devices and through ereader apps. And I love that most of the typefaces I’ve mentioned above are easy to download and free to use.

What typefaces do you use for reading ebooks? I know from chatting with folks online that there’s a wide range of opinions out there. I’d love to hear about which typefaces you’ve tried and which ones you find yourself using more than others.

Typefaces on book copyright pages

I don’t think it was ever common practice but, when I was a kid, I feel like more books used to mention what typeface they were printed in.

Some examples

Here are a few examples of older and newer books in our collection that mention the typefaces they’re printed in, as shown on their copyright pages.

A graphic showing the scans of the copyright page of four books. The pages have been cropped so you see only the lines that tell you what typeface each book was printed in. Headings above each scanned section name the typefaces used, which are Dante, Bembo, Minion, and Sabon. Text below each page tells you which book each page was scanned from. These are The Dark is Rising Sequence by Susan Cooper, Terra Nullius by Claire G Coleman, The Endsister by Penni Russon, and Bloody Hell! by Mona Eltahawy.

The typefaces used in those books are:

These are all classified as Garalde or old-style typefaces, by the way, and I love all four of them.

(I haven’t written anything in Dante myself, but I do enjoy reading books set in it.)

A tiny peek behind the curtain

Reading through the copyright page at the start of every book taught me so much about publishing and printing. In fact, that’s probably where I first came across the concept of typefaces.

Those pages also introduced me to things like copyright, ISBN, editions, prints, and the cities and countries in which book designers, typesetters, and printers were located.

I loved learning and nerding out about all this when I was younger and, to this day, I go through the entire copyright page of every book I read. [1]

Of course I get an extra thrill when I find a book that tells you what typeface it was set in.

It’s even cooler if it tells you the font size and line spacing used. Those are the numbers separated by a slash that are sometimes printed just before the typeface name, by the way. So, “10/12 pt Sabon” means 10 point Sabon with 12 point line spacing (or “leading”, as it was traditionally called).

It takes almost no effort to add this information to a copyright page and I wish more publishers would do it or more authors would insist upon it.

Oh well.

[1] This is one of the things I find incredibly annoying about Amazon Kindle ereaders. When you open a new book on those devices, they jump straight to the main text. That means every time I open a book, I have to manually make my way back to the cover so I can read all the front matter before starting the main text. Conversely, I love that Kobo ereaders open new books at the cover, so you get the chance to read through all the front matter every time. Having read books on Kindles for many years, reading books on Kobos now brings me a lot of joy :)

Willy Caslon: an excellent Caslon revival

This post ended up being longer than planned, so…

tl;dr

Caslon is an underused typeface, and for good reason: it isn’t well know, its has some design quirks, and it has very few good/complete digital versions.

Latinotype has just released an excellent contemporary revision of Caslon with five weights (plus italics) named Willy Caslon, and it’s on sale at MyFonts right now (60% off!).

If you’ve always wanted a good digital interpretation of this style of typeface, now is your chance to pick one up.

There’s also nice write-up about Willy Caslon in WE AND THE COLOR.

Promotional graphic for the newly released Willy Caslon typeface from Latinotype. (Source: Latinotype)

Caslon doesn’t get much love

When you think of classic, Latin-script typefaces used in books, magazines, and other text-heavy printed material, a handful to mind:

Graphic showing the opening paragraph from The Rook by Daniel O’Malley set in four different typefaces: ET Bembo, Stempel Garamond, Adobe Caslon, and Baskerville URW.

Putting Bodoni aside for the moment (since that’s not as general-purpose as the others), if you want to use one of these classic typefaces in your work in 2026, you have several high quality digital options (both revivals and interpretations) to choose from.

Of those options, these are my favourites:

Everyone has heard of Garamond and Baskerville, and some people may also have come across Bembo because it used be bundled with Microsoft Office, but I bet most people won’t have heard of Caslon. (Though if you’re a macOS user you’ve had a version of Big Caslon included since, I think, macOS Sonoma.)

Why is Caslon not more popular these days? There are two reasons for this.

History

Caslon, developed in London by William Caslon I, was hugely popular in the British Empire and British North America when it was released in 1725. American polymath Benjamin Franklin used nothing else, for example, and the US Declaration of Independence of 1776 was printed in Caslon.

But Caslon wasn’t popular elsewhere in the world (eg in Europe where a lot of other Latin-script typefaces were being being used and developed) and then it fell out of favour globally as transitional typefaces like Baskerville rose in popularity from the mid- to late-1700s.

Caslon did have a bit of a revival in late 1800s/early 1900s, but it was again eclipsed by both newer typefaces (like Plantin, Times New Roman, Sabon, and Palatino) and revivals of older typefaces (like Bembo, Garamond, and Baskerville).

Photograph of the book ‘Death Comes for the Archbishop’ by Willa Cather published in 1927. The book’s text is set in Caslon. (Source: AbeBooks)

Digital versions

When the world moved to digital type, the classic typefaces that were popular at the time were the first ones digitised, sold, and bundled with operating systems and with design and desktop-publishing software. [2]

On the sans serif side, that meant we got typefaces like Helvetica, Arial, and Futura instead of Franklin Gothic, Univers, and DIN. And on the serif side, that meant we got typefaces like Garamond, Baskerville, and Times New Roman instead of Bembo, Caslon, and Sabon.

Operating systems and design software did sometimes bundle limited versions (only one or two weights) or lower quality versions (oversimplified) of less popular typefaces, but that was about it.

I’m a fan of Caslon

I haven’t had the opportunity to use Caslon in my own work very much, but I really like it. It looks great in the The New Yorker, for example, and that publication uses Adobe Caslon in both its print and digital editions. I also prefer Caslon (an “old style” typeface) to Times New Roman (a “transitional” typeface).

Screenshot from The New Yorker website showing two articles with the headings and text set in Adobe Caslon.

That said Caslon isn’t a go-to typeface for me, which is why I haven’t felt the need to purchase a copy of Adobe or Paratype’s Caslon yet.

The main reason I don’t reach for Caslon very often is because its digital revivals are, well, a little too accurate to the original design. [3] The original Caslon’s design has a few quirks that makes it less than ideal for the majority of my use cases.

One repeated complaint about Caslon’s design, for example, is that its uppercase characters are noticeably taller and darker than its lowercase characters. So when you’re reading a block of text, those uppercase characters jump out on the page a little, making the overall colour of the page uneven. Adobe Caslon faithfully replicates this quirk.

Graphic showing a paragraph of text set in both Adobe Caslon and Willy Caslon. Call-outs point to two capital letters in each paragraph. The call-out for Adobe Caslon reads, “Uppercase characters are taller and darker than lowercase, so they jump out at you in blocks of text”. The call-out for Willy Caslon reads, “Here they’re not as tall, and they’re also the same shade as lowercase, so they don’t jump out at you”.

What’s cool about the Latinotype interpretation of Caslon is that its designers removed the original design’s metal-type, print-era inconsistencies and added more precision and uniformity – all without neutralising the typeface’s essential character.

(Dirk Petzold’s article in WE AND THE COLOR goes into more detail about Willy Caslon’s design, if you want a deep dive.)

This is why the text set in Willy Caslon in the graphic below looks more uniform. And because it is slightly darker overall, this typeface works great on screen and in print.

Graphic showing the first two paragraphs of the Wikipedia entry for Caslon set in two different typefaces, Adobe Caslon and Willy Caslon.

(FYI, the design of Libre Caslon Text fixes the size and colour inconsistency between uppercase and lowercase characters, but leaves the rest of the design as is.)

Why am I so excited about Willy Caslon?

There are many digital versions of Caslon available (see Fontspring, MyFonts, and Type Network), but very few are fully featured and useable in modern publishing contexts.

Most are available in just a single style (regular). A few include italics or bold; some include italics and bold; and very few include the basic set of regular, italic, bold, and bold-italic.

Some versions are distressed fonts, which make them more suited for graphic design than for body text applications.

And some, like Matthew Carter’s Big Caslon, are display fonts and not text fonts.

The handful that do include the basic font set (and sometimes more, like the semi-bold and black weights) are:

I don’t have first-hand experience with all these typefaces, but the problem with pretty much all of them is that they’re either too faithful to the original design or they simplify the design so much that some of the original Caslon character is lost.

Graphic showing the word, “Quetzalcoatl” in large text set in four different typefaces: Willy Caslon, Adobe Caslon, LTC Caslon Long, Libre Caslon Text.

Willy Caslon benefits from the recent trend of type designers releasing digital interpretations of classic typefaces that retain the character of the original but are now suited to the needs of modern digital and print publishing. [4]

Promotional graphic for the newly released Willy Caslon typeface from Latinotype. (Source: Latinotype)

I, for one, am thrilled that a really good, high-useable version of Caslon is now available, and I’m looking forward to using Willy Caslon wherever and whenever I can.

[1] If you keep going forward in time, you can add these to the list of popular editorial typefaces too: Plantin (1913), Goudy Old Style (1915), Times New Roman (1931), Janson (1937), Ehrhardt (1938, 1680s), Palatino (1949), Dante (1954), Sabon (1967), Palatino (1949), Minon (1990), Hoefler Text (1991), and Adobe Jenson (1996).

[2] Yes, yes, I know I’m greatly simplifying things here. A lot went into deciding which typefaces got digitised first, including considerations around licensing, availability, practicality, and personal preference.

[3] Another reason I don’t reach for Caslon very often because its free version, Libre Caslon Text, works best at 16pt and above, so that only works for web pages and not for documents.

[4] Kris Sowersby’s Martina Plantijn (Plantijn) and American Grotesk (Franklin Gothic) are prime examples of this trend.

A fun convergence around the monospace typeface aesthetic

Let’s talk about monospaced typefaces.

Who still uses monospace typefaces?

One of the only places normies will read anything in a monospaced typeface these days is when they buy something from a store and they get a long paper receipt from a point-of-sale machine (aka cash register).

Screenshot of a digital receipt from Australian retailer JB Hi-Fi for a Microsoft Surface laptop and pen. The typeface used here is Courier.

There are, however, two groups of people who still frequently use monospace typefaces.

Computer nerds

The first group is software programmers and computer nerds like me.

We read and write things in plain text files (software code, system configurations, etc) and we use our computer’s command line all the time, both of which use a monospace typeface by default.

Screenshot of a computer’s command line showing the list of files in a directory (aka folder). The typeface used here is Hack.

Film nerds

The second group is folks who work in the film and television industry, as well as film nerds like me.

We work with – or, in my case, just read – screenplays all the time, and virtually all of those are written in a monospace typeface. (At least all the screenplays written in the Latin script.)

The font used in these screenplays is almost always 12pt Courier, Courier Prime (which was designed specifically for screenplays), or Courier Sans Mono.

Screenshot of the screenplay to the film ‘Sinners’ by Ryan Coogler. Source: SimplyScripts. The typeface used here is Courier.

Old-school cool

Even though most of us rarely use monospace typefaces in our daily lives, the impact that geekdom and filmdom have had on popular culture means that there’s an “old-school cool” aesthetic about using monospace typefaces.

Of course this is also partly because Courier was the typeface used by IBM Selectric typewriters, and that was the typewriter of choice for many famous authors and journalists from the 1960s onwards.

‘Thomson and his typewriter’ (Source). Photo of American author and journalist Hunter S. Thomson standing calf-deep in snow outside his cabin in Aspen, Colorado, USA in 1989. Thomson is wearing blue jeans, a blue jacket, and a brown fedora hat. He is pointing a silver handgun at beige coloured IBM Selectric typewriter lying on the snow a short distance away from him.

All that to say there are still plenty of monospace typefaces being designed and published every year. And some techie/nerdy websites and blogs also continue to use monospace typefaces for their body text and headings – like Cory Doctorow’s Pluralistic, which uses your browser/computer’s default monospace typeface in all its text elements.

A convergence of aesthetics

This brings me to the fun convergence that is the topic of this post, where we have two type designers who approached the monospace-typeface aesthetic from opposite directions.

A monospaced typeface with a proportional typeface aesthetic

In 2021, Owen Earl from indestructable type* published the Drafting* Mono typeface.

This monospace typeface is a gloriously “weird, wildly inconsistent” serif/sans-serif hybrid that “[imitates] the spirit of typewriters, not the literal look”.

Basically, this is a typewriter-inspired, monospaced typeface that has the aesthetic of proportional typefaces (aka variable-width typefaces).

Meaning this typeface functions like a monospace typeface but reads like the regular serif/sans-serif typefaces we’re used to seeing every day.

Graphic showing the first two paragraphs of Alice’s Adventure in Wonderland by Lewis Carol set in the Courier Prime and Drafting* Mono typefaces.

A proportional typeface with a monospaced aesthetic

In 2024, Pedro Arilla from Arillatype.Studio published the At Textual typeface.

This is a typeface that “draws inspiration from the texture, readability, and honest utilitarianism of monospaced fonts”.

Basically, this is a proportional typeface that has the aesthetic of monospaced typefaces.

Meaning this typeface functions like a proportional typeface, but reads like the monospace typefaces you see in text files and film scripts.

Graphic showing the first two paragraphs of Alice’s Adventure in Wonderland by Lewis Carol set in the Courier Prime and At Textual typefaces.

Converging around an aesthetic

I love that the two designers started from completely opposite directions (and largely remained within their respective lanes) but they both ended up converging around the idea that the monospace typeface aesthetic is cool, even in body text applications, and that they should do something about it :)

Want a different typewriter aesthetic?

By the way, if you’re after a monospace typewriter aesthetic but Courier and Drafting* Mono are too plain and neutral for you, check out Clack by Matthew Hinders-Anderson.

Graphic showing the phrase “Rabbit hole” set in the Courier Prime, Drafting* Mono, At Textual, and Clack typefaces. The text set Courier Prime is flagged as being standard and neutral; the text set in Drafting* Mono is flagged as being stylish and quirky; the text set in At Textual is flagged as being stylish and proportionally-spaced; and the text set in Clack (Medium) is flagged as being elegant.

Clack is a lovely interpretation of the typefaces found on IBM Selectric typewriters (ie Courier and its variations) and is great for reading and writing text. It has weights that range from thin to black, and it has italics (which not all typewriter-inspired typefaces have, fyi) so it has a super versatile set of fonts as well.

Graphic showing the first two paragraphs of Alice’s Adventure in Wonderland by Lewis Carol set in the Courier Prime and Clack typefaces.

The only catch with all of Hinders-Anderson’s typefaces is that, while they’re free for anyone to use, they can only be used for non-commercial purposes.

This is why, for example, design agency Forge could use Hinders-Anderson’s Union Gothic typeface for the 2025 ‘Zohran for NYC’ campaign, but no brand can use that typeface for any commercial purpose – which I think is really cool :)

Screenshot from the Zohran for NYC campaign website showing headings set in the Union Gothic sans serif typeface.

Favourite monospace typefaces

That’s all I have to say about monospace typefaces today.

Though, if you want, you can check out my December 2025 list of favourite typefaces in which I include my favourite monospace typefaces towards the end.

Do you have any favourite monospaced typefaces? I’d love to know what they are. Especially the ones you use for writing text, not just code.

Cool type pairings on the web, part 3

Time for another instalment of my cool type-pairing series, this one featuring a range of online publications.

Ars Technica

You can build an excellent website using just free typefaces if you pair them well, which is what Ars Technica has done.

This site uses Source Sans 3 (Adobe, Paul D Hunt) for body text, Faustina (Omnibus-Type) for headings, and Exo 2 (Natanael Gama) for bylines and metadata. All of which help make this website look modern and serious/authoritative.

Screenshot from the Ars Technica website of an article titled, “A quirky guide to myths and lore based in actual science”.

Source Sans 3 and Faustina are both on my most recent (Dec 2025) favourite typefaces list, by the way :)

Semafor

While Ars Technica’s style is that of a modern, web-only publication, Semafor’s style is very classic newspaper/magazine, though also one that’s web-only. In fact, its two main typefaces were both originally designed for magazines that were published by the New York Times.

This website uses Lyon Text (Commercial Type) for body text and Feature Flat Display (Commercial Type) for its headings. Oh, and it uses good old Helvetica for its metadata, captions, menus, etc.

Screenshot from the Semafor website of an article titled, “Semafor Tech’s predictions for 2026”.

Hodinkee

Sticking with websites that use modernised classic typography, let’s look at Hodinkee.

Hodinkee uses mostly the Portrait typeface family (Commercial Type): Portrait Text for body text, Portrait Regular for headings, and Portrait Inline Sans for the article category (ie the “Essays” that’s in all-caps in the screenshot below). Portrait is a minimalist, screen-friendly interpretation of French Renaissance typefaces like Garamond.

The site also uses Brown (Shinntype) for bylines and metadata and Proxima Nova (Mark Simonson) for the headings and metadata in the comments section.

Screenshot from the Hodinkee website of an article titled, “An Exciting 2026 And A Push For More In 2026”.

Harvard Business Review

Let’s end on a website that uses two of my favourite typefaces, the website in question being the venerable Harvard Business Review (HBR).

HBR’s website uses Tiempos Text (Klim Type Foundry) for body text and GT America (Grilli Type) for headings and everything else (metadata, menus, captions, etc).

Screenshot from the Harvard Business Review website of an article titled, “Don’t Underestimate the Value of Professional Friendships”.

Tiempos Text is a modernisation of typefaces like Plantin and Times (the Linotype interpretation of Times New Roman that’s available on macOS). Times New Roman itself is based on Plantin.

According to its designers, GT America is “the missing bridge between 19th century American Gothics and 20th century European Neo-Grotesk typefaces” – meaning it takes the best design features from American typefaces like Franklin Gothic and European typefaces like Helvetica and Univers.

Both Tiempos Text and GT America are really cool. And also really expensive. <sigh>

What’s next?

After focusing on large publications in this instalment, I think I’ll focus on personal blogs in my next cool type-pairing post.

Avenir alternatives

Two of my all-time favourite sans serif typefaces are Frutiger and Avenir, both of which were created by Adrian Frutiger.

I’ve already written an extensive post about my recommended Frutiger alternatives, but here’s a quick run-down of my favourite Avenir alternatives.

Why an alternative?

Two reasons.

Avenir is expensive!

A single-user, desktop-only licence to Avenir Next costs AU$1,520.

So if you don’t already have access to Avenir through some other means, then you’ll want a free or more affordable alternative.

Of course if you’re a macOS user, then this reason won’t apply to you since you already have all of Avenir and Avenir Next pre-installed in your operating system.

Regular weight may be too light for text

If you only have access to Avenir through a Microsoft 365 subscription, though, this second reason might apply to you.

That’s because the Avenir fonts included with the Microsoft Office suite are:

  • Avenir Next Light + Italic

  • Avenir Next Regular + Italic

  • Avenir Next Demi Bold + Italic

  • Avenir Next Bold + Italic

The problem with this is that the Regular weight of Avenir is quite light, so if you’re using it as a text font – especially at smaller sizes – it’s not the easiest to read on screens.

Compare the text below set in Avenir Next Regular (on the left) and Helvetica Neue Regular (on the right). The text on the left does look a little more elegant, yes – since lighter typefaces tend to look more elegant anyway – but the text on the right is easier to read.

macOS users don’t have this problem because they can just use the Medium weight of Avenir Next instead – like in the graphic below where both columns are easily readable.

Paid alternatives

My favourite paid alternatives to Avenir are Hint from Paratype and Sailec from Type Dynamic.

Noah from Fontfabric is also good but, like Avenir, its Regular weight is a little light.

None of these are copies of the Avenir, of course, so you won’t get all its design quirks – like the horizontal tail of the uppercase ‘Q’ – but they all have a vibe that’s similar to Avenir’s.

Hint

Hint doesn’t have the 1920s luxury feel of Avenir (with its tall and narrow letterforms) but it does have a more “quiet luxury” feel about it.

Sailec

Sailec is billed as a “totally neutral” typeface, but it has much more style than Helvetica, for example, and is a good, albeit somewhat muted, alternative to Avenir.

Free alternatives

My favourite free alternatives to Avenir are Figtree from Eric Kennedy and Montserrat from Julieta Ulanovsky and others.

A more neutral, but still somewhat elegant, alternative is Poppins from Indian Type Foundry.

Of these, Montserrat has the most interesting uppercase ‘Q’ but I think Figtree is a better overall alternative for use on screens.

Figtree

According to its designer, Figtree’s vibe walks the line between “simplicity and friendliness” so it doesn’t quite have the elegant vibe you get from Avenir. But because many of its its letterforms are so similar to Avenir’s, it does work as a decent alternative.

It’s probably more accurate to say that Figtree is a good alternative to Frutiger, by the way – and perhaps a version of Frutiger that leans more towards the elegance of Avenir.

Montserrat

Montserrat has a stylish/elegant vibe, but its letterforms are both larger and wider than Avenir’s – which makes sense, given Montserrat’s inspiration came from old posters and signs in the Montserrat neighbourhood of Buenos Aires. Still, it’s a pretty decent alternative to Avenir.

Final thoughts

I love Avenir and use it whenever I can (eg in presentations and in printed letters), but if I want an elegant typeface for body text font use on screens, then Hint is what I end up using most of the time.

Arial and Helvetica alternatives

I created a video [YouTube, 14:35min] about the typefaces I recommend when people tell me they’re bored of (usually) Arial and they want me to suggest a more interesting font that still looks professional.

However, I hate it when content is video-locked (ie available only in video format) so here are the key bits from that video in text form.

Why use something different?

There are two reasons you could be looking for an alternative to Arial and Helvetica:

  1. Same-same: You want a typeface that’s very similar to Arial and Helvetica. Maybe because you prefer a typeface with an open licence or one with a less expensive and less restrictive licence. Or maybe you just don’t have access to Arial and Helvetica and you want to use a drop-in replacement.

  2. Different: You want something slightly different from Arial and Helvetica, though you still want this typeface to have an overall neutral-ish vibe.

I have recommendations for you either way.

Similar to Arial and Helvetica

There are a lot of typefaces that are very similar to Arial and Helvetica, but these are the ones I usually recommend.

My free favourites

These are my two free recommendations:

I actually prefer Arimo over Arial for everyday use because I think Arimo looks better on screens: it has a slightly taller x-height, more open apertures, and a little more character overall. Check out the The Register website to see how good Arimo can look on a text-heavy website.

I also prefer Nimbus Sans over Helvetica because a commercial licence to Helvetica (ie not just the personal licence you get with macOS) is quite expensive.

Before you ask, I’m not a huge fan of Liberation Sans (from Red Hat) so that’s not a typeface I’d recommend.

My paid favourites

These are my four paid recommendations [1]:

Slightly different from Arial and Helvetica

For those of you who skipped my video on this topic [YouTube, 14:35min] these are the not-so-neutral, sans serif typefaces I recommend:

My free favourites

These are my four free recommendations:

Officer Sans was designed to be metrically compatible with Arial and Helvetica and I use this my default spreadsheet font.

When I need to write text in a neutral-ish, sans serif typeface, though – like a formal letter – its usually a toss-up between Public Sans and Officer Sans. [2]

My paid favourites

These are my four paid recommendations [1]:

If you want to know why I recommend these typefaces out of all the other ones that out there, you should watch my video.

Honourable mentions

I also have two honourable mentions:

Roboto is used everywhere on the web but I don’t see it being used very often in documents and presentations, so this might be an interesting alternative to consider.

I love Unica as a typeface, but I much prefer Lineto’s Unica77 over Linotype’s Neue Haas Unica (which, as it happens, I do have a licence to). Unfortunately, Unica77 is very expensive. That’s why I only have it under a trial licence and why it’s an honourable mention and not a full-on recommendation. <sigh>

Any others?

Do you have a go-to neutral sans serif typeface that you’d recommend to others? Let me know.

FYI, the text used in the comparison-graphics above is from the opening sentences of The Rook by Daniel O’Malley.

[1] Whenever possible, I recommend typefaces from only indepenedent, interesting, or otherwise notable type foundries.

[2] As its designer, Dan Williams, mentioned in an interview, Public Sans pairs really well with Georgia (or with Gelasio, which is the Google Fonts alternative to Georgia).

My favourite typefaces (December 2025)

[NOTE: The most up-to-date version of this list is always on the ‘Typography’ page.]

The end of the year is a good time for me to update my list of favourite typefaces.

Since my last update in December 2024, I have:

As a reminder, the typefaces below are grouped by their level of formality (‘How I think about typefaces’) and are sorted in decreasing order of versatility (ie how easy they are to use in different types of projects).

Serif typefaces

Sans serif typefaces

Slab serif typefaces

Monospace typefaces

Typeface wish list (realistic)

What are your favourite or go-to typefaces? I’d love to know.

[Video] Bored of Arial and Helvetica? Try these fonts instead

Are you, like me, are bored of using the default, neutral, sans serif typefaces that came preinstalled with your word processor?

I made a video about the four free and four paid alternative typefaces I recommend you use instead.

FYI, I use Public Sans all the time and Officer Sans is my default spreadsheet font.

Not quite on a roll

This is now my third typography explainer video. The long gap between the first two videos and this one is because first I got struck down by post-viral fatigue and then life and work both got super busy. Oh well.

Video transcript

Links and references, in order of appearance

Font downloads and purchases

Icons and photos

Cool type pairings on the web, part 2

This is the second post in my cool type-pairing series in which I’ll be sharing, well, the cool typeface pairings I see on the web.

NewsBlur

The site on which I read the most amount of text is NewsBlur, the news reader/feed aggregator that I switched to when Google Reader was unceremoniously killed off in 2013.

It was here that I first came across Whitney (Hoefler&Co), which to this day remains one of my all-time favourite typefaces. That’s the typeface I use on NewsBlur to read all my news feeds.

Screenshot from the NewsBlur website of an article titled, “How China cleaned up its air pollution - and what that meant for the climate”.

Whitney was originally created in the late 1990s for the Whitney Museum in New York, USA. Designed for both wayfinding and editorial uses (ie for physical signs and for using as body text), it draws from the functionality of Frutiger (another one of my all-time favourite typefaces) and the structure of various American gothics, such as News Gothic.

Rands in Repose

Speaking of typography from Hoefler&Co, Rands in Repose uses one of my favourite typographic pairings: Ideal Sans (Hoefler&Co) for body text and Sentinel (Hoefler&Co) for headings.

Screenshot from the Rands in Repose blog of a post titled, “The Loop”.

Ideal Sans is a fun typeface with almost no straight lines and very few symmetries across its design. Sentinel is a modern take on a classical slab serif typeface. The two work brilliantly together.

The Conversation

Moving away from expensive typefaces, let’s look at The Conversation since this website uses typefaces that are available for free under the SIL Open Font License.

This website uses Libre Baskerville (Impallari Type) for body text and Montserrat (Julieta Ulanovsky, Sol Matas, Juan Pablo del Peral, Jacques Le Bailly ) for headings. For everything else (byline, metadata, navigation, footer, etc) it uses your browser’s default sans serif font.

Screenshot from The Conversation website of an article titled, “How China cleaned up its air pollution - and what that meant for the climate”.

Libre Baskerville is an open-source, screen-optimised adaptation of the original 1775 Baskerville typeface. It looks authoritative, yet approachable. Montserrat is a geometric typeface by Julieta Ulanovsky that’s based on posters, signs, and windows from the historic Montserrat neighbourhood of Buenos Aires. Both typefaces are a little large and a little wide, and they work really well together.

ABC News

Finally let’s look at the ABC News (Australia) website which uses the bespoke typefaces ABC Sans Nova for its body text and ABC Serif for its headings – both designed by Australian Type Foundry.

Screenshot from the ABC News website of an article titled, “First Hike Project helps refugees experience hiking in Australia’s bushland for the first time”.

You can download these fonts from the ABC News GitHub instance. Since all of ABC News’ other GitHub work is available under the MIT licence, I suspect these fonts have been made available under that licence as well – though that isn’t spelled out on the download page itself.

The ABC superfamily of typefaces is friendly and easy to read on screens, and helps maintain the reputation of the most trusted news source in Australia.

Any suggestions?

Let me know if you have any favourite website typeface pairings. I’d love to check them out.

Cool type pairings on the web, part 1

As a typography nerd, I notice and then investigate almost all the typefaces I see on the websites I visit. And its not just the typefaces themselves that I pay attention to, I also note the typeface pairings that have been used: meaning the combination of fonts used for body text and headings. I also check to see if there’s any interesting use of typography in the other text elements (pull quotes, bylines, footers, etc).

This post is the first in an ongoing series in which I’ll share the cool font pairings I find online. I’m doing this because I want to (a) share cool stuff with others who might find this interesting and (b) build a type-pairing catalogue for my own future inspiration.

Though let me begin, rather self indulgently, with my own website :)

Insanity Works

This website’s current type pairing is Chaparral (Carol Twombly; Adobe) for body text and Myriad Condensed (Carol Twombly, Robert Slimbach; Adobe) for headings. I wrote in 2023 about how happy I was when the Adobe Fonts catalogue was added to Squarespace (the platform on which this website is hosted) because these two fonts became available for use.

Before then, I used the closest Google Fonts alternatives to those typefaces: Merriweather (Eben Sorkin; Sorkin Type, Google Fonts) for body text and Oswald (Vernon Adams, Kalapi Gajjar; Cyreal) for headings.

Two graphics showing text set in (1) Chaparral and Myriad Condensed and (2) Merriweather and Oswald. The text has the title, “Chapter 1: SOUL-EATER” and is from Naomi Novik’s book, ‘A Deadly Education’.

Chaparral is a hybrid serif/slab-serif typeface. I love how beautiful and graceful it is, even while it retains the friendliness and authoritativeness of its slab serif foundation. Myriad, which is reworking of Franklin/News Gothic, is an excellent combination of elegant, friendly, and authoritative. I think the two typefaces complement each other really well.

Merriweather and Oswald also complement each other nicely, though their vibe is more modern. Merriweather is a traditional typeface (with Garamond as its inspiration) that was adapted for use on screens. It is classic and elegant, but also an everyday workhorse. Oswald is based on Alternate Gothic (a lighter, narrower version of Franklin Gothic) and this slightly-condensed reworking was also designed to be used on screens.

Going back in time

If we go further back in this history of this website – between 2007 and 2012, which was before I switched to the Squarespace – I used Georgia (Matthew Carter; Microsoft) for both body text and headings.

And if we go all the way back to when I first created this site – so from 2004 to 2007, when default, web-safe fonts ruled the day – I had everything set in Verdana (Matthew Carter, Thomas Rickner; Microsoft).

Two graphics showing text set in Georgia and Verdana, respectively. The text has the title, “Chapter 1: SOUL-EATER” and is from Naomi Novik’s book, ‘A Deadly Education’.

Georgia and Verdana were designed to be screen-first typefaces, specifically typefaces that looked good on the lower-resolution computer screens that were prevalent at the time (ie the mid-1990s). They were designed as serif/sans-serif companions to each other and both are solid, authoritative, and highly-readable typefaces.

Al Jazeera

Speaking of Georgia, a website that uses this typeface effectively is Al Jazeera.

The use of Georgia (Microsoft) for body text and Roboto (Google Fonts) for headings gives the Al Jazeera website a clean, no-nonsense, trustworthy vibe.

[Note: screenshots from websites have been heavily edited to focus on only the fonts used.]

Screenshot from the Al Jazeera website of an article titled, “Frida Kahlo painting sells for $54.7m, breaking record for female artists”.

Roboto started out a “frankenfont”, meaning an unwieldy combination Helvetica, Myriad, Frutiger, Univers, FF DIN, and Ronnia. Fortunately, its design team kept working on it and, by around 2014, it had become a much more unified and harmonised typeface. These days it is the most used font on Google Fonts and, despite its overuse, I still like using it and seeing it being used.

The Guardian

Diametrically opposed to Al Jazeera’s “let’s use default/standard typefaces” approach is The Guardian that uses a family of bespoke typefaces.

This website uses Guardian Egyptian Text for body text and Guardian Egyptian Headline for headings. It also uses Guardian Sans for various other bits of text. These are all part of a superfamily of typefaces commissioned by the Guardian for its rebrand in 2005 and designed by Paul Barnes and Christian Schwartz (with Panagiotis Haratzopoulos and Ilya Ruderman) from Commercial Type.

Screenshot from The Guardian website of an article titled, “Frida Kahlo self-portrait sells for $54.7m to set new auction record for a female artist”.

The Guardian’s highly sophisticated use of typography comes from its print newspaper origins, and I love that its designers have carried over that sophistication into its digital versions. Also, I think Guardian Egyptian is my all-time favourite newspaper typeface.

In typography, ‘Egyptian’ is the older, art-based name for what we now call slab serif typefaces. Guardian Egyptian is a warm and organic-looking slab serif that still retains its solid authoritativeness.

Wired

Let me conclude this post by talking about Wired, a magazine that I’ve been reading since it launched on the web as HotWired in 1994 – back when it used “Arial,Helvetica,Verdana” as its HTML font stack!

These days Wired uses Breve Text (Dino dos Santos; DSType, Monotype) for body text; Wired Display (Abbreviated Foundry) for headings; Apercu (Colophon Foundry) for intro and lead-in text; and Wired Mono (Formula Type) for bylines and article metadata.

Screenshot from the Wired website of an article titled, “British Churches Are Putting Their Faith in Heat Pumps”.

Like the Guardian, Wired got its start in print and this is reflected in its sophisticated use of typography, digital design/typesetting, and the use of publishing elements like lead-in text that aren’t commonly used on the web. (In a magazine, ‘lead-in’ refers to the words set in all-capital letters at the start of an article’s main text.)

Both Breve Text and Wired Display are modern typefaces with a lot of personality, which suits a publication like Wired that reports on the cutting edge of technology. Apercu, meanwhile, is an amalgamation of ITC Johnston, Gill Sans, Neuzeit, and Franklin Gothic, which makes it a little quirky and gives it a lot of character. This contrasting of very modern typefaces with a quirky-classic one makes for a hugely compelling website design.

More to come

I have many more websites to talk about in this series, but I think that’ll do it for now.

If you have a website type pairing that you particularly like, please tell me about it. I’d love to take a look and then add it to my catalogue. Thanks!

Monotype font licencing shake-down

tl;dr Don’t try to shake-down a typography nerd with your dubious, automated claims about his employer using unlicensed fonts.

How it started

It started with a LinkedIn InMail message (sanitised to protect privacy):

Subject: [Urgent] Font Software Licensing Review

Hi Ameel

I hope you’re doing well.

I’m [NAME] from Monotype and have been trying to reach you at [WORK EMAIL ADDRESS], but I’m unsure if my emails have been received.

Our team has identified Monotype font software embedded in the websites/apps of [YOUR COMPANY], but we couldn’t locate the corresponding licenses in our database.

Would you be able to share the correct email address so I can provide more details and documentation? Alternatively, you’re welcome to reach out to me directly at [SENDER’S EMAIL ADDRESS]

I appreciate your time and look forward to resolving this with you at your earliest convenience.

Best regards,

[NAME]

Business Development Representative | Monotype, Australia

I was puzzled by this for two reasons:

  1. This person had my correct work email address, but at no point had they sent me an email about this issue or about anything else. I checked. (Starting with a lie? Not a good look.)

  2. As far as I knew, my employer didn’t use any Monotype fonts on its websites and apps.

Always good to check

Just in case there was any merit to this claim, I did a quick review and found that I was right. In Australia we have one corporate website, one retail website, and one retail app (with iOS and Android versions) and all of those use our official font which, for better or for worse, is Open Sans.

Now, not only is Open Sans not a Monotype typeface, it is available under the SIL Open Font License (OFL) meaning we can use this typeface for literally anything except selling the font itself. So that couldn’t be what this person was talking about.

Screenshot of the SIL Open Font Licence home page. Text below the heading reads, “The widely used, community-approved, free, libre, and open source license specifically designed for fonts and related software: a solid legal framework for worldwide development, sharing, and improvement of fonts and related software in a collaborative manner.”

Next I checked our international retail websites and our project and partnership websites, since all of those have their own branding.

I found that on the websites we directly manage, we use these typefaces:

  • Roboto, available under the SIL OFL

  • Asap, available under the SIL OFL

So no issue there.

And on the websites our partners manage, we use these typefaces:

  • Public Sans, available under the SIL OFL,

  • Network Sans, a custom font created for the government agency that built the website this is used on so they wouldn’t need a licence, and

  • Proxima Nova, the only font that does require a licence, except that Monotype doesn’t sell a licence to it.

So no issue there either.

Promotional graphics displaying the Roboto, Asap, Public Sans, Network Sans, and Proxima Nova typefaces.

With those initial checks done, I reached out to our digital team (who build and manage our websites and apps) with a screenshot of the LinkedIn message I’d received and a summary of my investigation. I asked them how they wanted me to reply.

I needed to check with these folks first because my team and I only look after the corporate website. My employer’s overall digital presence – including the back-end of the corporate website – is managed by the digital team.

Turns out a couple of people from the digital and design teams had received identical messages from this Monotype “Business Development Representative”.

A few internal back-and-forth emails later we decided that:

  • Instead of all of us responding, only one nominated person from the digital team would respond.

  • But before responding, the digital team would do their own investigation into the fonts we use and the licences we own so we could verify everything was in compliance.

Of course that’s not how things actually went down.

Three-panel meme showing Oprah Winfrey pointing at members of her TV talk show audience apparently shouting, at least according to the text captions at the bottom of each panel, “You get a LinkedIn message!”

Fishing (phishing?) around

What the Monotype rep did next is kind of what a malicious hacker does when they’re trying to get someone from your company to click on a link that’ll install malware on your computer. Over the next couple of weeks, the rep messaged a dozen or so more people from different parts of the business, hoping to hook just one person who would reply to the scary message they were sending.

Now I’d already emailed my design, brand, and digital team colleagues to tell them about this mass-messaging campaign and our plan of action for it, but the Monotype rep expanded their campaign to include people from our procurement team, who I hadn’t thought to forewarn.

So not long after, I received a message from one of my procurement team colleagues who’d been forwarded that LinkedIn message from their senior manager with an instruction to deal with this. I explained to my colleague that, as far as I could tell, this Monotype campaign was similar to the domain name scams the procurement team is already familiar with. So please sit tight till our digital team colleagues have completed their audit and then we’ll figure out which one person should start the conversation with Monotype.

But, like any successful phishing campaign, the Monotype rep’s LinkedIn messages eventually reached someone who did respond. This was another person in the procurement team and, just to be completely clear, I don’t blame them for responding. They were just doing their job of protecting our business from potential copyright liability.

Being forced to deal with the issue

Since I’d handed this over to the digital team, I hadn’t kept track of how things were progressing. I was brought back into the discussion when our brand manager included me in an email thread between her and the procurement person who’d responded to Monotype.

I quickly brought this second procurement person up to speed with our earlier plan of action and then I looped in the digital team again. Turns out the digital team had completed their audit, found that we were in compliance, but had gotten busy with other work so no one had responded to Monotype. *sigh*

Screenshot from the TV series ‘Star Trek: The Next Generation’ showing the character of Captain Jean-Luc Picard sitting in the captain’s chair with his hand covering his face, typically referred to as a “face palm” gesture.

Now, of course, everyone was on the back foot because our new procurement rep had shared the PDF that Monotype had sent, listing all the places where we were using Monotype fonts without a proper licence.

And, to quote from the procurement rep’s email:

Supplier has confirmed two options:

Past Use License Agreement is used (PULA) to cover the usage for the period without a license if the software is to be removed.

Process the PULA with a Go Forward license agreement to allow compliant continued use of the fonts in use.

Reading that, I got this procurement rep to quickly convene a meeting with everyone involved, though it turned out the person from the digital team who’d done the font audit had gone on annual leave.

The rest of the digital team didn’t know anything about font licencing and this was the first time this procurement rep was dealing with font licencing as well. So, partly spurred on by their senior manager’s instruction to deal with this, the procurement rep was seriously considering paying the licencing fee that Monotype had asked for, just to make this whole headache go away.

This is where I jumped in and told everyone to hold up. I said I would take the lead on this internally and I would take over the discussion we were having with Monotype as well. The procurement rep, I think somewhat relieved to have this taken out of their hands, agreed.

Why did I insist on taking this over? Two reasons:

  • I’m a bit of a typography nerd so I know what I’m talking about and

  • a quick look at the document Monotype had sent over with the list our alleged copyright infringements had told me that everything the Monotype rep was alleging was wrong.

Screenshot from the film ‘Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker’ in which the character Luke Skywalker is saying, “Amazing. Every word of what you just said was wrong.”

Never send an AI to do a human’s job

An April 2025 blog post from Studio Twofold’s Jamie Walker titled ‘Unlicensed Fonts: The Hidden Risk in your Branding’ opens with:

Lately, we’ve seen a noticeable uptick in copyright issues related to both images and fonts. Several clients have reached out after receiving emails about fonts [an] agency used on their site years ago.

Naturally, they’re a bit rattled — and with good reason. These kinds of copyright claims can come with hefty fees if you’re found to be in breach.

Further down Jamie writes:

Smaller businesses can get caught off guard — and with AI now scanning the web for even the tiniest copyright infringements, it’s more important than ever to stay protected.

Think they’re only picking on the small guys? Think again. Even giants have been caught out – proving no one is too big to face the music (or in this case, the typography).

Basically, the reason so many organisations are getting out-of-the-blue copyright claims these days is because major copyright holders have started using automated, AI-powered copyright infringement detection software, of which there is a lot out there. *sigh*

Monotype seems to have used one of these products too, because the two fonts its report claimed we were using without a valid licence are:

Let’s take those one at a time, shall we?

Screenshot from the film ‘The Princess Bride’ in which the character Inigo Montoya is saying, “Let me explain. No, there is too much. Let me sum up.”

What’s in a name?

The first thing I did as I read the report was look up the Credit Cards font on MyFonts.com, Monotype’s online store front.

Credit Cards is a pictogram font that contains these icons:

Screenshot from the MyFonts.com website showing the glyphs contained within the Credit Cards font.

When I saw that I thought to myself, “Why would we want to use those icons in our apps?”

Next I read Monotype’s report in detail and saw this screenshot. This is from an analysis of our app’s payload and is the apparent proof that Credit Cards is being used in our smartphone apps:

Screenshot of a table in a PDF file showing a 70 kilobyte size font file with the extension TTF and the filename, “CREDC” followed by three underscore characters.

Having worked with a great many font files over the years, when I saw that filename I thought to myself, “Are we sure that’s actually the Credit Cards font that Monotype claims it is?”

So I checked. I did a web search for fonts with “credit card” in their name and very quickly found one called ‘Credit Card’ – singular – from K-Type. This is a regular text font (as opposed to an icon font) that looks like the raised text that’s printed on credit cards.

Screenshot from the K-Type website showing the description and sales page of a font named Credit Card. The description starts with, “Credit Card is an all capitals font for simulating bank cards.”

Now that I was something I could see us using in our apps.

Happily, Credit Card is free for personal use so I downloaded it and looked at the zip file. And guess what the filename of the font is?

Screenshot of software showing the contents of a zip file. A file among this list is highlighted. Its name is “CREDC” followed by three underscore characters. It has the extension TTF and is approximately 70 kilobytes in size.

Yup, the filename is CREDC___.ttf – which is exactly the filename that was in the app payload analysis from Monotype.

Seeing this, I reached out to my design team contact who then got me in touch with the person who manages our smartphone apps. From them I found out that, sure enough, the only font over and above Open Sans that we use in our smartphone apps is Credit Card by K-Type.

SCORE: Ameel 1, Monotype 0

Proxima Nova, really?

Unlike the Credit Cards font, our use of Mark Simonson’s Proxima Nova was never in contention. We clearly use it in one of our project websites. My employer didn’t actually build that website – we bought this under-construction project from another entity – but this website is very much our responsibility now.

The problem for Monotype here was that it no longer sells licences to Proxima Nova. There was a time you could buy a licence to Proxima Nova from Fonts.com, which was Linotype’s online marketplace. But Monotype bought Linotype and eventually killed off Fonts.com and, some time after that (I don’t know when or why), the font’s designer stopped selling licences to Proxima Nova through MyFonts.com.

Screenshot from the MyFonts website showing a page with an error message that reads, “The font is no longer available for purchase”.

Of course learning this fact didn’t mean that I was just going to stop my investigation. I reached out to a person, who reached out to a person, who reached out to the design agency that designed (and still maintains) our project website. The design agency contact did their own investigation and quickly confirmed that, yes, they do indeed have a licence to use Proxima Nova on this site – one that they had purchased from Adobe several years ago.

SCORE: Ameel 2, Monotype 0

Closing the book on this whole affair

Armed with this knowledge, I got the procurement person to introduce me to the Monotype rep. The rep and one of their colleagues were very eager to talk, replying to this introductory email within fifteen minutes. They wanted to organise a meeting so they could finally get the font licencing agreement signed. Instead what they got was a long email from me in which I explained the situation in detail, complete with annotated screenshots like the one above :)

The Monotype rep chewed on this for a few days and then made one final attempt at getting money out of us. They agreed that they were currently unable to sell a licence to Proxima Nova, but it turns out Monotype is one of K-Type’s authorised resellers and [they] “currently cannot see the license on our files for this use” – meaning there wasn’t a record of us purchasing a licence to Credit Card from Monotype. So could we please “confirm if there is one that we for some reason are unable to see in our systems?”.

*sigh*

I wrote back and told them the reason Monotype doesn’t have a record of this licence is because we purchased a one-off Enterprise Licence directly from K-Type several years ago.

This was several weeks ago and I haven’t heard a peep from them since.

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Graphic showing cracked green paint on pavement on top of which white coloured text has been overlaid. The text is a quote from Ben Goldacre that reads, “I think you’ll find it’s a bit more complicated than that”.

Two sides to the story

Despite my making light of the situation, I don’t actually hate Monotype for doing this. Using fonts without purchasing a proper license (or purchasing the fonts outright) is stealing and you absolutely should not do it.

The fact that font licensing can be a complicated issue is not an excuse; lots of things are complicated and we figure them out.

More importantly, I think the type designers and type foundries that create fonts should be fairly compensated for their work. Paying for fonts, or an ongoing licence to those fonts, is how you do that.

In short, you should pay for fonts and you should call out people and organisations when they use fonts without a proper licence.

(For completeness’ sake, I should say that I also don’t mind that Monotype used automated systems to find copyright violations. The internet is so large that it’s impossible to manually find all the people who have stolen your stuff!)

It’s not what you do, it’s how you do it

That said, I hate how Monotype’s business development people went about doing this. Much like the blatantly overzealous content blockers on YouTube, the Monotype reps who reached out to us didn’t even bother to verify whether the report their AI spat out at them showed an actual copyright violation or not.

I mean, I know why they didn’t double-check. Just like with scammers and phishers, this is a volume game, not an accuracy or fairness game. You bombard people with messages, scaring them with your (potentially unverified) claims, and eventually some of the thousands of people you’ve messaged will reply. You then rush these folks into paying a licence fee because your targets don’t have enough information about font licencing and, frankly, they just want the problem to go away. This is a shitty way to do business and it reflects poorly on your organisation.

Screenshot from the Nebula.tv website showing a documentary with the title ‘Nebula Sans’. The short description of this documentary reads, “The story of a font built on principle, free to use for anyone who needs it.”

You’re not making any friends

Not that reputation seems to matter too much to popular digital marketplaces – Amazon being the poster child for this. They’re big, they’re arguably enshittified, and all they appear to care about is making as much money as possible.

I mean there’s a reason why so many type designers urge people not to licence fonts – even their own fonts – from MyFonts and instead buy or licence fonts directly from designer and type foundry websites. And, barring that, buying or licencing fonts from smaller, independent stores like Fontspring instead.

This is also why TypeType and Fontstand offer font subscriptions that are alternatives to those from Adobe Fonts and Monotype.

And this is why, for example, the independent video streaming site Nebula was forced to design their custom Nebula Sans font. Nebula’s website and streaming apps used to use the Screen Smart version of the Whitney font from Hoefler&Co. But when Monotype purchased Hoefler&Co, the new Monotype licencing/royalty structure meant that a licence to Whitney was suddenly unaffordable to Nebula. Since paying that (apparently much) higher amount to Monotype wasn’t going to be financially sustainable, Nebula instead paid Paul D. Hunt, the original designer of the excellent Source Sans font, to modify his font so it would be a drop-in replacement for Whitney in all of Nebula’s digital products. And because Source Sans was released under the SIL Open Font License, Nebula also released Nebula Sans under this OFL.

If that’s how much effort folks are willing to make to to avoid using your company, you probably already know that you’re not very well loved.

Screenshot of a website banner that shows the date range, “November 6 – December 4” and reads, in fancy, bright-pink, all capital letters, “cyber sale” and, “shop now”.

What do do?

So what’s my take-away from all this?

  • Don’t use scammy tactics to scare people into purchasing your shit. And if you are going to use those tactics, at least don’t be wrong about it!

  • If anything like this happens to you or your employer, find the relevant nerd in your friend group or organisation and ask for their help.

  • If you can, avoid licencing fonts from Monotype. Get your fonts directly from the original designers and type foundries, or maybe from smaller, independent marketplaces like Fontspring (which has its big annual “cyber sale” on till 4 December, by the way).

  • If you’d rather avoid the hassle of font licencing altogether, then do what my employer did and pick an excellent, versatile OFL font and use that instead. Though, if you want to stand out from the crowd, please consider avoiding the most popular fonts on Google Fonts.

Oh, and while I’m far from an expert on typography, if you need a hand with anything font-related, please reach out. I’d be happy to help in any way that I can :)

My favourite typefaces (December 2024)

[NOTE: For the most up-to-date version of my favourites list, see my ‘Typography’ page.]

It’s December 2024 and, of the typefaces I currently have a licence to, these are my favourites. (Like last time, I’m just going to list them, not talk about them.)

I’ve grouped the typefaces based on their level of formality, as discussed in my ‘How I think about typefaces’ post. And I’ve sorted them in decreasing order of versatility.

Also, I’ve only included typefaces that work well for body text or occasional text (ie short blocks). This list would be far too long if I listed all the heading and display typefaces I liked!

Serif typefaces

Sans serif typefaces

Slab serif typefaces

Monospace typefaces

Typeface wish list (realistic)

The way I acquire typefaces is by maintaining an up-to-date list of the realistically affordable typefaces I want to buy next. If any of those typefaces go on sale, I snap them up. But if there are some that never go on sale, I wait till I get my annual bonus from work and then buy one or two families every year.

Since I maintain that up-to-date wish list of future favourite typefaces (at least the more affordable ones), I figured I’d include that here as well :)

Do you have any favourite or go-to typefaces? What are they? I’d love to know!

How I think about typefaces

I want to talk about my current favourite typefaces. But in order to do that, I need to explain how I categorise typefaces. So here goes.

When trying to figure out which typeface(s) to use in a project, the first aspect I consider is the level of formality the body text typeface needs to have. Everything else flows from there.

Levels of formality

I put typefaces into formality categories based on the vibe I get from them. And because the formality level of ‘formal’ can be context dependent, I split that into subcategories.

This gives me six “vibe” categories which are, from least to most formal:

  • Friendly

  • Casual

  • Chill (formal)

  • Neutral (formal)

  • Stylish (formal)

  • Elegant

If this sound a bit like I’m describing fashion, then you’re correct. I think of these formality levels as either dress codes or as the type of pen I’d use to achieve that level of formality.

Applying this to typography, here’s how I’d sort some familiar typefaces into these categories.

No categorisation system is perfect, of course, and many typefaces are versatile enough to be placed in more than one category [1]. But my objective here isn’t to create the perfect categorisation, it’s to give me the language I can use to compare the vibes of two similar typefaces.

Happily, this formality-level approach is surprisingly practical when put into action. For example, I can say things like, “nah, that typeface has features that are too elegant for the vibe I’m trying to set in this situation” or “this typeface is on the chill side of neutral, which means it has the perfect level of friendliness while still being formal enough to use in this project”.

More than that, I can use this system as a whole to help me make typography decisions. Here’s how that works.

Start with neutral

Every time I kick off a new project, I start by considering if a neutral (formal) typeface is what I need. This is what I’d use if I didn’t want the typeface to be noticed. Or if it was noticed, I’d want people to assess it as neutral. Think Times New Roman, Helvetica, or Arial. Or Novela and Neue Montreal, like in the example below. If we were still in the days of handwriting everything, the vibe I’d be going for is text written with a fountain pen.

If neutral isn’t what I’m after, then I can go in two directions: warmer and friendlier or cooler and more elegant.

If I’m going in the cooler direction, then I’ll look for a stylish (formal) typeface. Something like Sabon or Caslon (both of which you see in a lot of printed books) or Futura. Or Writer and Cooper Hewitt, like in the example below. The vibe here is slightly more fancy/artsy, like text written with a fine felt-tip pen.

If that’s not enough, I’ll look for an elegant typeface. Think Baskerville, Palatino, or Avenir. Or Stempel Garamond and Noah, like in the example below. The vibe here is text written with a calligraphy pen.

But what if I want to go warmer instead?

Moving to the other side of neutral, I’ll look for a chill (formal) typeface. Think Calibri or Georgia. Or Charter and Public Sans, like in the example below. The vibe here is text written with a rollerball pen.

If that’s not enough, I’ll look for a casual typeface. Something like Century Schoolbook (which a lot of older children’s books were written in) or Work Sans. Or Vollkorn and Ideal Sans, like in the example below. The vibe here is text written with a standard ballpoint pen – though with good handwriting.

But if that’s still too formal, then I’ll look for a friendly typeface. Something like Gill Sans (the typeface used in classic, orange-and-white Penguin book covers) or Roboto Slab. Or Bariol Serif and Fira Sans, like in the example below. The vibe here is text written with a marker pen.

A real example

I went through this exact process when deciding which typeface to use in the labels of the graphics above, by the way.

I knew neutral was going to be boring (like DM Sans in the light blue box, below), but I didn’t want to go in the casual direction (like Public Sans in the orange box). I also didn’t want the labels to be too elegant (like Avenir in the dark blue box), so I settled on stylish (like Whitney in the mid blue box). And that’s why all the labels in all the graphics above and below are set in Whitney Semibold and Whitney Medium.

What next?

Now that I’ve explained my typeface categorisation, I can talk about my current favourite typefaces – which I will do so in the next post.

[1] Nudica, for example, I classify as ‘friendly’ because that’s the vibe context I tend to use it in most often. But it could just as easily be classified as ‘stylish’ if you used it in that context.  

[Video] Helvetica is boring, use Franklin Gothic instead

I think Franklin Gothic is cooler than Helvetica, so I made a video about why you should use it more often. And since the Franklin Gothic font you get with Windows and Office 365 isn’t particularly good, I recommend a few great free and paid alternatives.

I guess I make font explainer videos now

I had a lot of fun making the ‘Stop using Times New Roman’ video and so I’m back with a new one. Let me know what you think!

Video transcript

Links and references, in order of appearance

Font downloads and purchases

Photos and screenshots

Text and articles

Other

[Video] Stop using Times New Roman

I made an explainer video about why you should stop using Times New Roman and which font you should use instead (based on your needs).

What did you think? This is the first time I’ve made a video like this, so all feedback is appreciated. A voiceover artist I am not :)  So if you have any specific voice acting tips for me, please share those too. Thanks!

Where did this come from?

You know how they say, “if you can’t find what you want to read, you should write it yourself”? Well I’m now applying that to explainer videos too :)

Designer Oliver Schöndorfer from Pimp my Type is the only person I know who creates videos like this one. They’re excellent and you should watch those on his YouTube channel. He also does weekly ‘Font Friday’ reviews on his mailing list.

But most of the other online discussions about typography are in blog posts, forum threads, or webpages – like these alternative-to resources on Typewolf and Practical Typography.

I myself wrote a couple of blog posts about recommended alternatives to Times New Roman a few months ago (original, follow-up).

The videos that people have produced about fonts are either from a graphic designer’s perspective or they’re one-offs – like ‘The controversial story of Times New Roman’ by The Middle-Aged Hack.

But since I’ve never seen anyone do an explainer video of this type before, I figured I might as well make one my own.

And since I had so much fun creating this video, I’ll think I’ll create a bunch more. Maybe one every couple of months? *crosses fingers*

Let me know if there’s any font you want me to talk about, by the way. I love researching and getting into the nitty gritty of typography, and I’m more than happy to take requests :)

Video transcript

Links and references, in order of appearance

Font downloads and purchases

Photos and screenshots

Text and articles

Other resources

 

Franklin Gothic alternatives – follow-up

UPDATE (Oct 2024): In the first 1 minute, 12 seconds of this video on YouTube I show you my four free and four paid recommended alternatives (with download links in the description).

There’s a new, fantastic Franklin Gothic alternative in town: American Grotesk by Klim Type Foundry. 

In my earlier dive into Franklin Gothic alternatives I focused on affordable (and, in fact, free) alternatives. This time we’re at the other end of the spectrum because a 5-user, desktop-only licence of the American Grotesk collection (regular, condensed, and compressed) will set you back US$1,134.

But if you can afford that, it is totally worth it.

Graphic showing two columns of short text blocks and large heading and title text. The left column shows these in Franklin Gothic Book, Franklin Gothic Medium, and Franklin Gothic Heavy. The right column shows these in American Grotesk, American Grotesk Medium, and American Grotesk Black.

If you read American Grotesk’s design information, you’ll learn that some core aspects of Franklin Gothic’s identity were lost when it was translated from metal type to photo typesetting by the ITC type foundry in 1980.

Screenshot from the American Grotesk design information webpage showing typeface samples comparing, in the left column, News Gothic to ITC Franklin Gothic Book and, in the right column, Franklin Gothic to ITC Franklin Gothic Heavy. The News Gothic and ITC Franklin Gothic Book characters have numbered call-outs on them to highlight their differences.

And then you’ll read about what type designer Kris Sowersby did to maintain Franklin Gothic’s original industrial machine feel in American Gothic. If you’re a type nerd like me, you’ll enjoy getting into all those details :)

Anyway, this follow-up to my original post is just to note that American Grotesk is an excellent and gorgeous “reprisal” of Franklin Gothic that everyone should be aware of.

My favourite typefaces (April 2024)

[NOTE: For the most up-to-date version of my favourites list, see my ‘Typography’ page.]

I’d compiled this list for myself and figured I might as well share it online, so…

It’s April 2024 and, out of the typefaces I currently have a licence for, these my favourites and the ones that I use most often.

Sans serif

A graphic titled ‘Sans serif’ with three columns of typefaces under the headings ‘used frequently’, ‘used infrequently’, and ‘used when needed’.

Used frequently in documents, presentations, and graphics: Whitney (Wikipedia), Whitney Narrow, Fact (MyFonts), Ideal Sans, Avenir Next LT (Microsoft, Wikipedia), Source Sans 3 (GitHub, Wikipedia)

Used infrequently for specific purposes (eg headings, graphics, presentations) and for specific applications (eg Verdana for email): Verdana (Microsoft, Wikipedia), Public Sans (GitHub, Wikipedia), Fira Sans (GitHub, Wikipedia), DIN Next (Wikipedia)

Used when needed for specific purposes (eg presentations, graphics): General Sans, Neue Haas Unica (Wikipedia), Neue Haas Grotesk (Microsoft, MyFonts, Wikipedia), Inter (Story, GitHub, Wikipedia), Jost* (Wikipedia), Cooper Hewitt, URW Dock, Libre Franklin (Wikipedia), Trade Gothic Next (Wikipedia), Gill Sans Nova (Microsoft, Wikipedia)

Serif

A graphic titled ‘Serif’ with three columns of typefaces under the headings ‘used frequently’, ‘used infrequently’, and ‘used when needed’.

Used frequently in documents, presentations, and graphics: Mercury, Source Serif 4 (Wikipedia, GitHub), Charter (ITC Charter), TT Jenevers (MyFonts), Stempel Garamond LT (Wikipedia)

Used infrequently for specific purposes (eg printed documents): Crimson Pro (GitHub), Vollkorn (Story), Sabon Next LT (Microsoft, Wikipedia)

Used when needed for specific purposes (eg presentations, graphics): Malabar, Alegreya, PT Astra Serif, Gentium Plus

Monospace, slab serif, reading, website

A graphic with four columns of typefaces under the headings ‘monospace’, ‘slab serif’, ‘reading’, and ‘website’.

Monospace used for coding (JetBrains Mono), note taking (Berkeley Mono), writing, and graphics: JetBrains Mono (GitHub), Berkeley Mono, Drafting* Mono, Fira Mono (GitHub, Wikipedia), Source Code Pro (GitHub), Cascadia Code (Wikipedia, Microsoft)

Slab serif used mostly for headings and graphics: Sentinel, Bitter (GitHub), Zilla Slab (Wikipedia, GitHub), Klinic Slab, Tisa Offc Serif (Microsoft, MyFonts)

Typefaces used for reading on devices (eg Bookerly on Kindle), websites (eg Whitney on NewsBlur), and apps (eg Vollkorn in Aquile Reader): Literata (Wikipedia, GitHub), Bookerly (Wikipedia), Whitney, Vollkorn (Story)

Typefaces used on websites (eg Chaparral and Myriad Condensed on this website): Chaparral, Myriad (Wikipedia), Myriad Condensed, Noto Serif (Wikipedia, Story, GitHub), Noto Sans (Wikipedia, Story, GitHub), Merriweather (GitHub), Oswald

Commentary

Don’t worry, I’m not going to explain why these are my favourite typefaces! That would be tedious and self indulgent of me. I just wanted to document this list somewhere.

I’m always on the lookout for more typefaces to explore and try, by the way. So what are your favourites? I’d love to know!

What you didn’t know about Verdana

I wrote in my last post about how the original Franklin Gothic ‘family’ was three fonts in a trench coat.

It occurred to me that the same can be said about Verdana.

Verdana was created by Matthew Carter for Microsoft and released in 1996. It was designed to be readable at small text sizes on the low-resolution screens available at the time.

You can trace its lineage from typefaces like Akzidenz Grotesk, Frutiger, and Franklin Gothic.

If you’ve spent any time on the internet, you’ll have seen Verdana in action.

What you probably didn’t know about Verdana is that you can use Verdana, Tahoma, and Nina together as a de facto typeface family.

At this point you’re probably thinking, “okay, Tahoma I know – but what the hell is Nina?”.

Like Verdana and Tahoma (the latter released at the same time as Verdana), Nina was created by Mattew Carter. You can buy it online but, if you’re a Windows user, you can just download it for free from the Microsoft Store.

The description for Nina on the Microsoft Store does say, “The design isn't close enough to call it Verdana Condensed, but the two typefaces are very closely related.”

But you know what? I say go ahead and use Tahoma as the de facto Verdana Condensed and Nina as the de facto Verdana Compressed. Almost no one will notice and, frankly, I don’t think anyone will care!

You’re welcome :)