I’m a typography nerd and here is where I collate my typographic preferences, recommendations, ideas, and thoughts.

You can find longer versions of everything below in the ‘typography’ tag on my personal blog.

Video explainers

• Helvetica is boring, use Franklin Gothic instead: video (YouTube) + accompanying blog post

• Stop using Times New Roman: video (YouTube) + accompanying blog post

My current favourite typefaces

Blog post: ‘My favourite typefaces (December 2024)’ + ‘How I think about typefaces’ (for an explanation of the categories)

tl;dr: I list my favourite typefaces and share links from where you can buy or download them

Favourite 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)

Favourite 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)

Favourite 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

Favourite 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

My current typeface wish list (realistic)

Blog post: ‘My favourite typefaces (December 2024)’ + ‘How I think about typefaces’ (for an explanation of the categories)

tl;dr: I list the realistically affordable typefaces that I intend to buy next

• 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

My favourite typeface pairings

Blog post: ‘My favourite typeface pairings’

tl;dr: I talk about my favourite body text typefaces and the heading typefaces I pair those with

Free or bundled typefaces

SERIF

• Charter: Public Sans (or Libre Franklin); Neue Haas Unica; Inter

• Crimson Pro: Fact; Inter; Neue Haas Unica

• Source Serif 4: Source Sans 3; Helvetica; Roboto

• Vollkorn: Vollkorn; Inter; Roboto; Neue Haas Unica

SANS SERIF

• Avenir Next LT: Zilla Slab; Sentinel; Avenir Next LT

• Fira Sans: TT Jenevers; Merriweather; General Sans

• General Sans: Jost*; Noto Serif; Gill Sans Nova

• Source Sans 3: Source Serif 4; Merriweather; Noto Serif

Paid typefaces

SERIF

• Mercury: Whitney; Ideal Sans; Verlag

• Stempel Garamond: Fact; Gill Sans Nova; Jost*

• TT Jenevers: TT Jenevers Extra Bold; Fact; Helvetica

SANS SERIF

• Fact: TT Jenevers Extra Bold; Fact Extra Bold; Crimson Pro

• Ideal Sans: Sentinel; Whitney; Verlag

• Whitney: Mercury; Verlag; Whitney Narrow

Typeface alternatives I recommend

Times New Roman

Blog posts: ‘Times New Roman alternatives – follow-up’ and ‘Times New Roman alternatives’

• To most people I recommend PT Astra Serif, which is a great, free, drop-in replacement

• To professionals I recommend Equity, which is an fantastic, paid, drop-in replacement

• To typography enthusiasts and website developers I recommend the Newsreader family since it has optical sizes (Display, Text, Caption)

• I don’t like Times New Roman so, whenever I need to use a formal, neutral serif typeface, I use Source Serif 4 (free) or Mercury (paid) instead

Frutiger

Blog post: ‘Frutiger alternatives’

• I adore Frutiger, but most people can’t justify buying one of its popular versions (ie Neue Frutiger and Frutiger Next)

• To most people I recommend Fact (paid) – this is what I use

• Another great alternative is Myriad (paid)

Franklin Gothic

Blog post: ‘Franklin Gothic alternatives’

• The Franklin Gothic ‘family’ is actually three typefaces: Franklin Gothic, Alternate Gothic, and News Gothic

• The modern versions of Franklin Gothic and News Gothic are all quite expensive

• If you want drop-in replacements I recommend Libre Franklin instead of Franklin Gothic, Oswald instead of Alternate Gothic, and Public Sans instead of News Gothic – all of which are free

• Trade Gothic Next and Benton Sans are great paid alternatives

• My preferred alternatives – which are heavily inspired by Franklin Gothic – are Whitney Narrow and Source Sans 3

My typographic journey

Blog post: ‘Journey to my favourite typefaces’

tl;dr: I show my journey from default typefaces to the typefaces I use now

These are my preferred free and paid alternatives to default operating system, word processor, and web typefaces:

• Arial (neutral, formal text): Roboto, Inter are free; Avenir is free on Windows; Whitney is paid

• Calibri (default text): Source Sans 3 is free; Whitney Narrow is paid

• Garamond (creative text): Stempel Garamond is paid

• Georgia (web text): Merriweather, Charter are free; Mercury is paid

• Helvetica (neutral text and signage): Roboto, Inter are free; Fact is paid

• Tahoma (formal text): Fira Sans, Source Sans 3 are free; DIN Next is paid

• Times New Roman (formal text): Source Serif 4, PT Astra Serif are free and good of everyday users; Newsreader family is free and good for typography enthusiasts; Equity is paid and good for professionals

• Trebuchet (creative text): Fira Sans, Source Sans 3 are free; Whitney Narrow, Ideal Sans are paid

• Verdana (web text): Open Sans, General Sans are free (though I don’t use Open Sans much anymore)

Other writing about typography

• What you didn’t know about Verdana: You can use Verdana, Tahoma, and Nina together as a de facto family

• Picking a typeface for writing code: I picked JetBrains Mono