Many think of Univers as a rival to Helvetica, the other uber-popular Neo-Grotesque sans serif. Side note: Neo-Grotesques draw inspiration from my favorite typeface: Akzidenz-Grotesk. Adrian Frutiger designed Univers in 1954. Frutiger is one of the most acclaimed type designers …
Gill Sans, the Humanist to beat
Based on the alphabet designed by Edward Johnston for the London Underground, Eric Gill’s Gill Sans has become one of the most popular Humanist sans serifs around. It’s strokes take influence from real pen strokes, with moderate to high stroke …
Futura was the future
Futura is a geometric sans-serif, meaning (a) that it has no serifs—those little feet you see on Garamond and Caslon—and (b) it’s made of simple shapes—circles, triangles, and rectangles—as opposed to other faces, which are meant to look at least …
Rockwell is all the craze right now
Rockwell is a very popular slab serif, or Egyptian, typeface. In this style, which is getting super popular now, the serifs are usually unbracketed and have the same stroke weight as the main strokes (i.e. they’re really big). They also …
Palatino never gets old
Designed by the late Hermann Zapf, Palatino is a humanist serif (like Garamond) created in 1948. Based on older, calligraphic letters, Palatino looks almost like writing done with a broad-nib pen. While made for headlines, it has experienced great popularity …
