Typeface lists
- (Except where I say do not), These are not recommendations! That takes more work.
I might boil down into recommendations later. This is more just
a catalogue of stuff I had open in browser tabs.
- Needs much older material brought in from my Quora answer about alternatives to Helvetica.
- Notes may be wildly incorrect and subjective.
- Lists are in no particular order, have not been filtered for excellence;
they just include things that I felt were good or interesting enough.
FOUNDRIES
DO NOT USE FOR BODY
UNDER-RATED SANS
BOOK SERIFS
- Harriet - revives Baskerville via Scotch Romans
- LL Bradford - revives Plantinesques
- Crimson Pro
- Old Standard TT - Century, condensed-ish
- Ploquine - elegant slab serif
- Make - Plantin inspired
- JT Peleton
- Nocturno - great, egyptian/plantinesque
- Bluteau Pro - optical sizes
- Farnham - nice optical sizes
- Meret - compact, newspaper
- Pensum Pro - lovely book face
- Bridge Text
- Teimer - stunning didone
- Crabath - gorgeous garamondesque - optical sizes
- Icona Serif - a plantin ?
- Duplicate Ionic - clarendon, compact
- Galaxie Copernicus/ - outstanding plantin revival
- Literata - superfamily, optical sizes
- Gamuth Text - “dutch baroque”
- Ingeborg - display and text, didone
- Chronicle Text - “blended scotch”
- Fulmar - “modern scotch”
- Calvino - garalde; text/display
- Passenger-serif - clarendon
- Neuton - compact, robust, monolinear
- Canela - caslon… transitional…
- sole-serif - optical sizes, handsome, robust
- Garalda - elegant garamond revival
- ashbury-font-hoftype - caslon-esque
- legitima-font-cesar-puertas - italianate? venetian????? aldine????
- Elena/ - calligraphic, nice italic
- Miller-text/
- William a-contemporary-interpretation-of-caslon-types
- Libre Caslon Text
- founders-caslon-font-itc - caslon revival, optical sizes
- espinosa-nova-complete-family-package-316060 - optical sizes
- Spectral
- abril-titling-font-type-together (actually display)
- Roslindale-specimen-microsite/ - optical sizes
- tasman-font-re-type
- fs-brabo-paneuropean-font-fontsmith
- yoga-pro-font-fontfont
- preto-serif-ot-std-font-dizajndesign
- Artifex
- Drummond
- olympian-font-linotype - Matthew Carter
- thanatos - optical sizes
- Nicholas-font-family-a-modern-classic-from-shinntype/
- calvino
- Sharp Serif
- Dover Text
- Arsen
- Apolline
- Austerlitz
- Le Monde
- Fournier
- Sabon Next
- Dato Serif - this looks very interesting but is not released since 2012!
- Blanco - lovely Plantinesque
Dinamo Otto - Boycott Dinamo until they repudiate ‘ai’ and their collaboration with OpenAI, a criminal enterprise- IvyOra - lovely Caslonesque (Dutch Antiqua); optical sizes
- Immortel - optical sizes, and four lovely “humours”
- Klim Epicene
- Triptych - spicy, bookish old style and grotesque
- Lórien
- Morisawa Role superfamily - optical sizes
- Lyon - optical sizes
- Meta Serif
- Hercules Neo by Stormtype - superb Scotch Roman revival, optical sizes including elegant display
- Mazarin by A2 Type
- Ny. by A2 Type; A2 has a number of other elegant book serifs worth checking out
- Jannon Neo - excellent set of optical sizes
- Henry - Garamond revival
- Freight Pro
- Quiosco - Cyrus Highsmith
- Cardo - Aldine / Bembo, free
- Graveur - Granjon, variable; also here
- Fern - lovely Venetian by DJR
- Pantheon - wow, just read it…
- Acta
- Caslon Ionic Rounded - basically what it says on the tin - lovely
- Alegreya Pro
- NaN Serf
- Bureau Serif
- Saga
- Herbik
- APN Chora
- Aeroplan
- Copernicus
- Lavigne Nova
- Bunyan Pro
- Sita Superfamily - Scotch Roman and grotesque sans
- NaN Tragedy - strong calligraphic personality, almost reverse shaded
- Caslonian - optical sizes; attractive display shadeds!
- Merlo Original - hat tip @jaimes.bsky.social
- Kornel
- Dejanire
- Heldane Text
- Register
- LfA Aluminia revival of Dwiggins’ Electra
- Signifier - “brutalist” inspired by Fell Types
- Montris - Modern/Scotch Roman, optical sizes
- Reckham - Clarendon/Scotch Roman, optical sizes and versatile series
- Parclo Serif
- Eskorte
- Tuna
- Publico Text
- [Essonnes](https://jtdtype.com
- Newsreader - optical sizes, also partly free on Google Fonts/typeface/Essonnes) - beautiful Didone, with Dramatic display and hardworking Text
- Romek Sharp & Romek Rounded
- Faustina
- Ivar Text
- Zenon
- Louize
- Gieo Text
- Syllabus - Plantin/Granjon revival
- Spezia Serif
- Store Norske Litteratur
- Arnhem
- Neacademia - hat tip Salt (publisher)
- Paperback - hat tip Salt
- Rekja
- Weymann Serif
- Anselm Serif - hat tip Jaime Silvela
- Face - beautiful serif - including display
- Newsreader - optical sizes, also partly free on Google Fonts
- Edgar - Caslon inspired, low contrast text face
ALTERNATIVES TO HELVETICA
MONOSPACE
UTILITY AND ENGINEERING/ENGRAVING
MISC