Survey reveals designers’ favourite typefaces
In a piece of research conducted jointly by MOO and CR, designers based in the UK ranked their favourite fonts, revealing their ‘go-to’ typefaces and the more contemporary fonts they most like to use
MOO set out to discover designers’ preferred typefaces and reached out to some of our readers earlier in the year. Thank you to the 1,161 of you who responded, and helped us shed light on the subject. The respondents, all UK-based, came from a range of company types and seniority levels.
‘GO-TO’ TYPEFACES
Unsurprisingly, tried and trusted Helvetica came top, as the respondents’ ‘go-to’ typeface of choice, closely followed by Avenir, Gill Sans and Futura.
Interestingly, Helvetica seems to hold equal appeal for young and old, with both junior and senior designers making it their top choice. Avenir, designed by Adrian Frutiger in 1988, was consistently picked as second favourite.
‘UP-AND-COMING’ FONTS
The survey also asked designers their thoughts on more recently developed typefaces. Nexa was a distinct favourite with over a fifth of the respondents choosing it as their preferred ‘up-and-coming’ font. Interestingly, Nexa is a free typeface developed by Fontfabric type foundry and much like Helvetica is a simple, sans serif typeface.
Besides Nexa, Basis Grotesque and Freight Sans won favour. Basis Grotesque is a very new typeface, released in 2015 by Colophon Foundry. The designers cite Akzidenz and various early Grotesques from Monotype as inspirations for the typeface. Freight Sans, meanwhile, was created by GarageFonts.
MOO’s Global Creative Director Brendan Stephens says: “The shared simplicity and fundamental nature of the top-scoring fonts show that the world of design has reverted to mastering the basics.” He believes the results indicate that creatives today value reliability and minimalism.