25 Classic Fonts That Will Last a Whole Design Career
Eric Gill, Adrian Frutiger and Max Miedinger are names we associate with the classic typefaces designers use on a daily basis. Their font creations are timeless designs that look right at home no matter what century we’re in. This collection of 25 classic fonts is a round up of the best and most popular fonts every designer should own. You can be sure that they will last your whole design career.
Helvetica
Who hasn’t heard of Helvetica? It’s probably the most recognised classic typeface. Originally designed 1957 by Swiss designer Max Miedinger and Eduard Hoffmann
Bodoni
Bodoni is a serif typeface designed by Giambattista Bodoni in 1798. Iconically used for the Goodfellas gangster movie poster.
Clarendon
Clarendon is a fantastically fat slab serif, created by Robert Besley in 1845.
Akzidenz Grotesk
Akzidenz Grotesk was designed in 1896 by the H. Berthold AG type foundry and was used as inspiration in 1957 for the Helvetica typeface.
Avenir
Avenir is a geometric sans-serif typeface designed by Adrian Frutiger (recall the name? He’s also famous for another classic font, I’ll let you guess which one).
DIN
FF Din is a relatively new typeface compared to the veterans mentioned so far with it being created in 1995 by Albert-Jan Pool. One of my personal all time favs.
Futura
Futura is another widely used font that can be seen in countless logos. It was originally created in the 1920′s by Paul Renner.
News Gothic
News Gothic was designed by Morris Fuller Benton in 1908, and has the most amazing fact of being the typeface used during the Star Wars opening credits.
Frutiger
Remember Adrian Frutiger? Needless to say he was also the designer behind the classic Frutiger typeface.
Meta
FF Meta is another member of the modern classic collection, designed by Erik Spiekermann in 1986. Meta is another of my personal favourites.
Gill Sans
Designed by Eric Gill in 1926, Gill Sans is another widely used font in graphic design. Famous uses include the London Underground signage.
Garamond
Probably one of the most famous names for serif fonts, Garamond can be found in a number of variations. Overall it’s commonly used for body text in books.
Mrs Eaves
Mrs Eaves is a recent design of a traditional serif typeface style by Zuzana Licko in 1996.
Dax
Dax, now famously used for the branding of UPS, was originally created by Hans Reichel.
Myriad
Yes, that one that appears as default in your Adobe apps. Myriad was designed specifically for Adobe by Rober Slimback and Carol Twombly.
VAG Rounded
VAG Rounded, aka VAG Rundschrift makes an appearance in countless web2.0 logos, but was originally designed in 1979 as a corporate identity for Volkswagen.
Optima
Optima is a German typeface designed by Hermann Zapf. It’s a sans-serif font on a low calorie diet with it’s thinning lines around the letterforms.
Avant Garde
Originally created for the Avant Garde Magazine, the Avant Garde font is now seen in plenty of printed headlines.
Univers
Univers is another classic by Adrian Frutiger. It has typical swiss styling and is often confused with Helvetica, or Akzidenz Grotesk.
Rockwell
Rockwell is probably the most iconic slab-serif font. Designed by Monotype in 1934 it’s now used in all kinds of designs for an eye grabbing impact.
Minion
Minion is a popular serif font designed by Robert Slimback in 1990 for Adobe. Cleverly named after the traditional naming system for type sizes.
Sabon
Sabon is another old style serif, this one however was designed by Jan Tschichold in Germany and released by Linotype, Monotype and Stempel in 1967.
Cocon
Cocon is the most recent of this collection, designed in 1998 by Evert Bloemsma, Cocon features some cool letterforms with sleek points.
Rotis
Rotis was built with exceptionally high legibility in mind. Designed by Otl Aicher in 1988.
Bembo
Bembo is one of the most popular typefaces used in books, first printed in 1496 and brought to life for the modern age in 1929.
Have I missed out your favourite?
Add your comment and let us all know your top fonts of all time.
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I’m always impressed when I see classic fonts that look modern. Superb list.
I also love requiem and copperplate!
Goudy Old Style —> A font that speaks of elegance
Excellent list of fonts! Thx for sharing!
Nice list. All of the best (in my opinion) are on here. Goudy Old Style is excellent too.
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No Georgia Font? Hmmm… Great post by the way.
Dax font is very nice.
Great list… Three additional suggestions to fill out the serif side:
Caslon, Didot, and Baskerville.
thank Tom.
I am agree with you.
I can’t believe you include cocon. Dax was a bit of a stretch, in my opinion, but cocon was too far. Don’t get me wrong, both seem well made and I could imagine using them given the right situation but cocon especially just lacks the general usefulness of the others. Otherwise, nice list. Probably my most used fonts would come from this list.
Great Collection. Thank you :) Univers is beautyfull.
Where’s Comic Sans? only joking. News Gothic is my personal favourite.
Thanks for the list. I use many of these fonts already, and I’m hoping to use the rest of them at some point. The only font I might add is Georgia.
You cannot say Adrian Frutiger was the designer behind Frutiger. He still is! Last year he turned 80, but he is still well and creative.
Great list ! Anyway, even if not the most beautiful, don’t you think that Courier should take place here ?
Thanks for a well written article. I enjoyed reading the history of the different fonts.
Very nice! Good to see my faves on here – Helvetica, Univers, Rockwell and Garamond.
Garamond is still one of my favourites. Optima is a very nice font as well.
Thanks!
Great list and love your site design!
thx
Why isn’t papyrus in this list?!
(I’m kidding)
Bella lista, manca UNIVERS
How can you have a list of classics without TRAJAN? Thanks for starting the discussion!
Good list. However, Gill Sans, great font though it is, is not the London Underground font. That’s P22 London Underground, designed by Edward Johnston and Richard Kegler in 1916. More info here: http://www.identifont.com/show?1YL
lol i was gonna mention comic sans too :)
FF DIN is actually based on DIN 1451, which was designed in the early 20th century. Albert-Jan Pool did an incredible job expanding and updating the typeface, but to say it was created in 1995 is a little misleading. Just wanted to add that, otherwise a solid list. I actually had a professor at University that used Helvetica and Univers exclusively.
I used to love Gill Sans, but I don’t think it’s a very attractive face anymore. Several characters (Capital R, lowercase a, italicized lowecase p) I really don’t like. And what’s with the superscript dot in Gill Sans Ultra Bold? I guess it has it’s uses, just not a typeface I gravitate towards.
I love all the fonts, they are definitely the best basic fonts to use, remember the days everyone used Times Roman as a default aaaaaaaaaaaahhhhh! that was scary
Nice list, Meta is definitely high on my personal list
Gill is Gill, and then there’s P22s London Underground.
Great, compact list of many all-time favorites. I’d like to add that the DIN font is used for the Autobahn signs in Germany. That said I think another classic that is becoming more and more popular could be Interstate, inspired by the US highway signage. I think it’s more of a classic than Cocon, which I’ve never heard of before. I think it would make a nice logotype sometime, though. So, thank you for pointing it out.
I would also include Formata in the classics.
good list, but Garamond should be included. Franklin Gothic, too.
A lot of classic typefaces by a lot of classic designers! Some of my favourites included…which I’m very pleased about…including Gill Sans.
Also a very good way to remind even the typographers of us, what great fonts there are out there that have been around along time – that have stood the test of time and proved that they are the best.
Perhaps the only other I’d include is Century Gothic – me and that typeface have history!
This is an amazing list, thanks for sharing.
You missed 5 :)
30 Essential Typefaces for A Lifetime (Paperback)
by Joshua Berger
Every time I find myself hating a design I’ve put together for a business card, logo, brochure, etc, I always change the font first and it seems to change the dynamic of the entire project.
It usually preserves my sanity as well!
I’ve used this link in my own blog, http://rockstarcarlene.com, because I think it’s a strong article that deserves attention.
You have a fantastic blog for designers! I appreciate your taking the time to put this together for us.
Thanks, Chris!
Futura?
excelente post
congratulations
very nice post man congratulations but i think the best font is Dim right?
but i think also that you should add more funny fonts especially comical fonts
Some great choices.
*If* I could make one change, I would swap out Mrs Eaves for Caslon.
:)
Great, it is the first time on a unique post, I found such a valuable things.
UPS actually uses a font they call “UPS Sans”, though it is certainly a rip off of Dax.
where is comic sans?))
Great list! If I could add one font to the list, it would be Georgia.
Thanks for sharing. Cheers!
Great collection fo timeless fonts, thanks for sharing them.
Great collection Chris! Loved the choices you made here.
Great Post Chris…
That made me search back for fonts I did have that I wasnt using. DIN is is one of those lost fonts that is now part of my FAV folder now…
You can never go wrong with classics…
I would replace
* Mrs Eaves with Kepler (Robert Slimbach) for the incredible breadth of the font.
* Do we really need Avant Garde, Avenir, AND Futura?
* VAG Rundschrift with Helvetica Rounded for versatility.
* Cocon with … c’mon, Cocon? How about Porcelain or PrintError :) ?
* I’d replace Myriad with something with a bit more style, like Syntax (Hans Eduard Meier 1968); besides no one wants to see something designed with Adobe’s default application font.
* And I would have to include a script face such as Snell Roundhand (Mathew Carter, 1964).
* Finally, I can’t live without Carta, Bundesbahn Pi, and Zapf Dingbats.
Very nice article, Garamond is still my favourite web safe font. I would prefer to see a comparison of these fonts though with true web save fonts. Typography has really come into its own in recent years but to get a great design out of just websafe fonts aswell is the key I think. Especially since the SEO wave is still gong strong and not dried up yet.
i think Gotham HTF could be in the list. :)
sorry, i’m here again… i forgot to say that DIN is awful, in my opinion. :)
Great post! One of the fonts that I am particularly fond of is the entire Oregon family, which comes in a number of different weights and styles.
I like Segoe Script