Nothing upgrades your designs like selecting the right font. It’s all too easy to fall into the trap of using the same typeface over and over, so every month, we publish this roundup to freshen up your font menu.
In this month’s edition, you’ll find plenty of sans-serifs with a twist, some retro scripts, and something for anyone already prepping for Halloween.
Volksans
Volksans is a precise and extremely well-executed sans-serif. Based on an early 20th-century design for Prussian railways, it’s highly legible and has a familiar feel to it. Look closely, and there are some nice details, like the cropped points, that make it feel more contemporary.
Basilar
Basilar is another sans serif font that draws its inspiration from an early 20th-century German typeface. This time, we find a sans serif that is less uniform and more graceful, with a higher contrast lending the family a humanist quality.
Parent
Parent is a refined and confident serif type family. It comes in 5 weights, and a variable font is available. It also has a companion Ink version that uses ink traps – internal and external — at the corners for an interesting decorative addition at larger sizes.
Hoppa
Hoppa is a playful, optimistic feeling sans-serif. It has a distinctive loop stroke on glyphs with a bowl and stem (like the a, and p) that creates a feeling of energy and movement. The rest of the design is a simple geometric sans-approach, keeping it legible.
Kolonia
Kolonia is a sophisticated serif typeface with exaggerated brackets, giving it the feeling of a text in print. However, it has some lovely details that are distinctly modern. Rarely – if ever — has a lowercase g looked so much like a cowboy leaning against a bar.
Chillink
Chillink is a super-bold script typeface. The swollen letters merge together, creating a particularly graphical shape. It has a cool, retro feel but only use at display sizes — and even then, in small doses.
Restart
Restart Soft and its companion typeface, Restart Hard, are incredibly polished sans-serifs. The proportions are exceptional, and the vertical rhythm is sensational. It’s a great choice for anything from signage to branding projects.
Welvum
Welvum is a comic display typeface that’s packed with energy. It’s a great option for signage, but it would also work well as a logotype.
Arbale
Arbale is a particular kind of geometric sans-serif, embracing as it does square strokes on the a and u, and an exaggerated diagonal on the e. In the bolder weights, the letterforms almost appear to be pulling faces at you. It’s a great option for logo designers.
Octangle
Octangle is a retro display typeface with a generous contrast. It’s great for evoking nostalgia.
Mayson
Mayson uses Arabic calligraphy to inform its Latin letterforms and vice versa, resulting in an elegant but highly legible typeface. It’s also available as a variable font.
Plain
Plain is a simple, modern sans-serif with graceful shapes and little in the way of embellishment. It’s a workhorse of a font family and works well at almost any scale, from footnotes to billboards.
Wornas
Wornas is a unique design with steampunk-style decoration. It’s only usable at display sizes and is best suited to single words. It’s crying out to be used on a movie poster.
Adecko
Adecko is a great graffiti font, perfect for capturing a laid-back, unconventional brand. It works best when packed with color.
Horror Fables
There are only a few holidays throughout the year that warrant dedicated typefaces. One of them is Halloween, and if you’re getting prepped early this year, then look no further than Horror Fables. It’s perfect for movie posters, party invites, or just switching up the type on your website one day in the year.
Ben Moss
Ben Moss is Senior Editor at WebdesignerDepot. He’s designed and coded work for award-winning startups, and global names including IBM, UBS, and the FBI. One of these days he’ll run a sub-4hr marathon. Say hi on Twitter.