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

• Friendly: Slippery; Bariol Serif (pay what you want); Emy Slab

• Casual: Merriweather (free); Bitter (free); Literata (free); Bookerly (free); Tisa Serif (included with Microsoft Office); Vollkorn (free); Caladea (free)

• Chill (formal): Source Serif 4 (free); Charter (free); TT Jenevers; Sentinel

• Neutral (formal): Novela (pay what you want); Mercury; Sentient (free); PT Astra Serif (free)

• Stylish (formal): Audela; Crimson (free); Writer; Sabon Next (included with Microsoft Office); Editorial New; Malabar

• Elegant: Stempel Garamond; Palatino Nova (included with Microsoft Office); DM Serif Text (free)

Sans serif typefaces

• Friendly: Fira Sans (free); Gill Sans Nova (included with Microsoft Office); Nudica (pay what you want); Bariol (pay what you want)

• Casual: Atkinson Hyperlegible (free); Ideal Sans; Work Sans (free); Woodford Bourne

• Chill (formal): Public Sans (free); Source Sans 3 (free); Trade Gothic Next (included with Microsoft Office); Fact; Segoe UI (included with Microsoft Windows); Libre Franklin (free); Oswald (free)

• Neutral (formal): Neue Montreal; Roboto (free); Inter (free); Helvetica Neue (included with macOS); Neue Haas Grotesk; DM Sans (free); Neue Haas Unica; Verdana (included with Microsoft Windows, macOS; Pro version free from Windows Store)

• Stylish (formal): Whitney; Poppins (free); General Sans (free); Cooper Hewitt (free); DIN Next; Jost* (free); URW Dock; URW DIN

• Elegant: Noah; Avenir Next (included with Microsoft Office)

Slab serif typefaces

• Friendly: Clab; Emy Slab; Bariol Serif (pay what you want)

• Casual: Merriweather (free); Tisa Serif (included with Microsoft Office); Literata (free); Bookerly (free); Bitter (free)

• Chill (formal): Zilla Slab (free); Charter (free)

• Neutral (formal): Roboto Slab (free)

• Stylish (formal): Rockwell Nova (included with Microsoft Office); Drafting* Mono (free); Klinic Slab (pay what you want)

• Elegant: Sentinel

Monospace typefaces

• Friendly: Nudica Mono (pay what you want)

• Casual: Fira Mono (free)

• Chill (formal): JetBrains Mono (free)

• Neutral (formal): Source Code Pro (free); Consolas (included with Microsoft Windows)

• Stylish (formal): Neue Montreal Mono; Drafting* Mono (free); Cascadia Code (free)

• Elegant: Berkeley Mono

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 :)

• Friendly: SideNote

• Casual: IvyStyle Typewriter

• Chill (formal): Myriad; IvyStyle Sans

• Neutral (formal): Untitled Sans; Untitled Serif; Tiempos Text; Equity Text

• Stylish (formal): Calluna; Calluna Sans; Kappa Vol2; Kappa; IvyJournal; Chaparral; Mackinac

• Elegant: Bodoni Egyptian; IvyOra

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