15 of Our Favorite Fonts
Our team at Hillhouse Creative stepped in front of the camera and shared 15 of our favorite fonts. Hear from individual team members about the fonts they can rely on, new fonts that have caught their attention, and find out whether or not your favorites made their lists.
If video isn’t your thing, we’ve provided a summary below.
Jenny's Favorite Fonts
GOTHAM
A go-to when looking for a versatile sans serif font
We’ll kick things off with Jenny’s favorite font, Gotham. Gotham is a geometric sans serif font inspired by architectural signs of the mid-20th-century. It’s from the Hoefler&Co. type foundry and is her go-to when looking for some other than Helvetica. It has a large font family so it’s very flexible and easy to use for projects that require a lot of copy.
MUSEO
A fun, semi-slab serif—say that three times fast!
BASKERVILLE
A serif that’s professional and friendly.
Baskerville is a popular classic font. You can use it in projects where you’re looking for something professional, friendly, or even elegant. The italic version is one of her favorites. Like many of her other favorite fonts, it also has a large family, which gives her the versatility she needs when working on projects.
MRS. EAVES
A feminine serif that shines when intentionally used.
Because Jenny is a fan of Baskerville, it’s no surprise that Mrs. Eaves is also one of her favorites. Mrs. Eaves is a perfect choice when you’re looking to add elegance and femininity to simple text. Because of its low x-height, it’s not a good choice when you’re setting large amounts of copy. However, it’s the perfect option when you’re looking to design something simple like a notecard, invitation, or a simple menu. The variations that this font family offers mean even if you’re working with simple text and simple projects, the outcome is not going to be boring.
DOMAINE
A curvaceous and versatile made-for-TV serif.
The last font rounding out Jenny’s top-five is rather new as typefaces go, and also new to her. She recently discovered the font while watching reruns of Dance Moms with her daughter on Lifetime television. It’s the font in their new logo—Domaine. It’s a serif font and she loves the bold, curvaceous, italic version used in Lifetime’s logo. And again, like all her other favorite fonts, the Domaine family is very large. There are options that can be used in projects that range from body copy to display.
Matthew's Favorite Fonts
UNIVERS
A clean and modern alternative to Helvetica.
CASLON
An extremely functional serif font—just doing its job.
Caslon falls into the category of fonts that Matthew likes to call comfortable, easy-to-read fonts. You don’t spend too much time looking at the design of the font itself. The font isn’t a piece of art so much as it’s a functional tool. You look at the font and you don’t really notice it’s there—and sometimes that’s the best thing. A good design gets the message across and you don’t get lost in the details. Because this is one of those fonts that is easy and comfortable to read, you don’t get lost in the overall design aspects of the font itself.
AVENIR
A modern sans serif font and French for ‘future.’
Avenir is a modern-looking font with a bit of an Art Deco feel. It’s also very clean and easy to read. At large sizes it has just enough design to make it distinct, but it also looks good at smaller sizes and is very legible—it’s the best of both worlds.
ROCKWELL
A popular slab serif—nice and solid.
Matthew likes to have a nice slab serif font in his font repertoire. It’s very readable for a slab serif, but it’s not really great for body copy. Rockwell is a good headline and subhead font. It has a nice solidity and a little bit of grittiness. It is a font that you want to use when you want something that has a little bit of weight but also maintain readability. Matthew really enjoys this font, especially for adding contrast. It pairs nicely with a sans serif, regular font and adds some weight to the page.
Atkinson Hyperlegible
A hybrid typeface designed for visually impaired readers.
Matthew is really excited to share this font. It literally says hyperlegible in the name, so it kind of tells you what this font is all about. It was designed with the Braille Institute to create a font that was very legible, especially for people with eyesight disabilities. It has a function, but that’s not even what makes this font really cool. What makes it really cool is the fact that it’s not really a serif, it’s not really a sans serif, it’s not a slab serif—it’s actually all three. The font was created to be more of a hybrid font so it has aspects of all three, which gives it a unique look but at the same time also makes it super legible. The Institute took aspects of all three of those types of fonts, analyzed them, figured out what made those fonts work, and pulled those elements into this one font. It’s a new type of font, designed for a reason, and it’s actually a really nice-looking font.
Jimmy's Favorite Fonts
TRADE GOTHIC
A fascinatingly round, geometric sans serif.
Jimmy likes Avant Garde Gothic purely for aesthetic reasons. He says, “I think there are only a handful of fonts that are this geometric in nature. It’s really fascinating to me how round some of these characters are.” Jimmy calls the ‘G’ a “thing of beauty.” He considers this a display font, in most cases, but the lighter weights will work when you need a body font, and there are condensed versions if you need more flexibility.
ITC Avant-Garde Gothic
A fascinatingly round, geometric sans serif.
Jimmy likes Avant Garde Gothic purely for aesthetic reasons. He says, “I think there are only a handful of fonts that are this geometric in nature. It’s really fascinating to me how round some of these characters are.” Jimmy calls the ‘G’ a “thing of beauty.” He considers this a display font, in most cases, but the lighter weights will work when you need a body font, and there are condensed versions if you need more flexibility.
The DIN Family
A utilitarian sans serif with a large family.
Jimmy is especially fond of the DIN family, which includes DIN Condensed, DIN 1451, and Adobe’s URW DIN. The first time this font stood out to Jimmy was when he saw the jacket design for a Nine Inch Nails record back in the 1990s. Since then, he’s come to learn that it’s widely used in Europe on street signage and license plates. There are tons of variations of DIN, so it isn’t limited to just display use.
NEUTRAFACE
A sans serif font with a retro feel and a massive cap height.
Like many of his other favorite fonts, Jimmy is drawn to Neutraface for its distinct quality. Jimmy was introduced to this font later in his career, and as far as fonts are concerned, it is somewhat of a newer font. Jimmy loves the retro feel to the characters and the extreme, distinct cap heights. The font has many family members so it works for many purposes, but Jimmy’s first choice would be to use it as a display font.
MINION
A serif font for those who don’t like serif fonts.
Jimmy doesn’t tend to gravitate towards serif fonts, but Minion is his go-to when he needs one. It has a large family and enough flexibility that he can depend upon it. He considers it his font of choice for larger projects that call for a serif font for body copy.