This supremely legible family comes in various weights and styles, even when combined, giving an impression of steadiness and homogeneity. Univers is a neo-grotesque sans-serif designed by Adrian Frutiger in 1957. It offers great on-screen readability characteristics and the pan-European WGL character set and solves the needs of developers looking for width-compatible fonts to address document portability across platforms. It was designed by Steve Matteson as an innovative, refreshing sans-serif design that's metrically compatible with Arial. Arimo by Steve MattesonĪrimo is a TrueType font family that looks surprisingly good in all sizes. But unlike the latter, Avenir is not purely geometric it has vertical strokes that are thicker than the horizontals, an 'o' that is not a perfect circle and shortened ascenders. It translates from French as 'Future', suggesting that Futura was an influence. He designed it to be a more organic interpretation of the geometric style, more even in colour and suitable for extended text and later described it as his finest work. Avenir by Adrian FrutigerĪvenir is a geometric sans-serif typeface designed by iconic Swiss designer Adrian Frutiger in 1987. Its effortless simplicity led to its popularity taking hold in what became known as the post-war Swiss International Style, and Pentagram partner Domenic Lippa has described it as 'probably the best typeface ever doesn't dominate when used, allowing the designer more freedom and versatility'.Īkzidenz-Grotesk by H. First published in 1898, the design originated from Royal Grotesk light by royal type-cutter Ferdinand Theinhardt. BertholdĪkzidenz-Grotesk translates into English as 'working sans-serif', and it has a long pedigree. A version optimised for desktop applications is available from the Github project page. The regular weights are optimised for on-screen text usage at medium sizes (14-48px), while those closer to the extreme weights are more suitable for display use. For example, diacritic marks are larger than how they'd be in print. Work Sans is an open-source typeface loosely on early Grotesques and is simplified and optimised for screen resolutions. By hitting the right balance between rounded and blunt terminals, it complements its serif sibling perfectly, giving the family as a whole a no-nonsense muscularity. The sans-serif is eye-catching in headlines but not distracting at text sizes. Published by Commercial Type, Stag is a super-family that originated as a slab serif commissioned by Esquire magazine for headlines. Stag Sans by Panos Haratzopoulos, Ilya Ruderman, Christian Schwartz It also includes several OpenType features, including tabular numbers, contextual alternates that adjust punctuation depending on the shape of surrounding glyphs, and a slashed zero for when you need to distinguish zero from the letter O. Inter by Rasmus AnderssonĪnother free and open-source typeface, Inter, is a variable font designed for screens, featuring a tall x-height to aid in the readability of mixed-case and lower-case text. The complete 897 character set includes Latin, Greek and Cyrillic character sets, and since 2021 it's been available as a variable font family.īy Wikipedia User:Sbp - Own work, CC BY 3.0 2. Created by Steve Matteson of Ascender Corp, it's been optimised for print, web, and mobile and has excellent legibility (it's especially wonderful in smaller sizes). Open Sans is a free, open-source, humanist sans serif, designed with an upright stress, open forms and a neutral yet friendly appearance. All of these provide the same clear, unfussy neutrality of Helvetica but with a different visual twist to help give your designs a more distinctive look. In the list below, we've brought together ten such alternatives. And since the dawning of the digital age, it's been ubiquitous on software, apps and websites everywhere.īut given this widespread use – which has been criticised as overuse by leading typographers such as Erik Spiekermann – designers will often seek an alternative to Helvetica to avoid their work looking too samey and predictable. There's even been a popular film about it. Helvetica has also been widely used in road and railway signage, from the UK and USA to Japan and South Korea. Some of the most recognisable uses of Helvetica have been on US tax forms, EU warnings on tobacco products, and in wordmarks, including American Airlines, BMW, Sears, Microsoft, Panasonic, Target and Verizon. Like the Swiss nation itself, designers loved its neutrality, making it almost infinitely adaptable for all kinds of projects. And it quickly became one of the most popular typefaces of the mid-20th century. Originally called Neue Haas Grotesk, the sans-serif, neo-grotesque typeface was designed by Swiss designers Max Miedinger and Eduard Hoffmann in 1957. Helvetica is one of the best-known and most-used fonts in the history of modern typography.

Fonts for illustrator helvetica