Stag Slab Serif Font Example
Serif fonts have these, Sans-serif fonts do not. For example, the capital 'T' in Times New Roman (A serif font) has small extensions, called serifs, at its points, whereas Arial, a sans-serif font.
- Didone fonts (blogger favorites) have an extreme contrast between the thick and thin lines; an example is Didot. Slab serif fonts are very thick, initially designed for posters. They can be described as sans-serif fonts with added serifs because they have a more modern vibe.
- Download the best free 50+ Slab Serif fonts from the various sources of internet. You can use these fonts on personal and commercial based projects.
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Typography is more than being legible and looking good. Among other things, effective typography manages to achieve two important objectives: a) to create an appropriate atmosphere and enable users to develop trust toward the site and b) to make sure visitors get the main message of the site and (if possible) become interested in the services offered on the site. Since written text is the most efficient instrument to communicate with visitors precisely and directly, the power of typography shouldn’t be underestimated. [Updated Nov/15/2016]
To communicate effectively, typography requires appropriate typefaces. Last year we’ve presented 80 Beautiful Professional Fonts, a selection of excellent typefaces one should be aware of when developing web-sites. Now it’s time to update our selection with typefaces we’ve missed then and new typefaces which have been developed over the last year.
Below you’ll find over 60 first-class corporate fonts. Please notice that they are not free; however, we’ve focused on typefaces which are definitely worth spending money on. So which typefaces are “bulletproof”? What fonts can be used effectively in almost every Corporate Design? And what are the options for unique, but still incredibly beautiful typefaces? Let’s find out.
Further Reading on SmashingMag:
60 Excellent Corporate Fonts
HapticThe Haptic family is a sans serif typeface which was optimized for use in small sized text. It serves well in attention seeking headlines. Comes in Roman and Italic with seven weights each. Type & Graphics by Henning Skibbe.
FF Meta SerifA collaborative work by Erik Spiekermann, Christian Schwarty and Kris Sowersby. The designers created a typeface with metrics that are not identical to FF Meta, but optically the same. Now what you see is what you get, a harmonious serif/sans type system. FF Meta Serif is available in four weights: Book, Medium, Bold, and Black, each with Italics. All styles include Small Caps, lining and oldstyle figures in proportional and tabular widths, and a range of arrows and other symbols.
MuseoA contemporary semi-slab serif font. This OpenType font family comes in five weights and offers supports CE languages and even esperanto. Beside ligatures, contextual alternatives, stylistic alternates, fractions and proportional/tabular figures Museo also has a ‘case’ feature for case-sensitive forms. This typeface comes in 5 weights; three of them are free.
BeorcanaBeorcana is a calligraphic sans, or serifless roman. Beorcana is unusual for a sans serif type; it is designed for extended reading. Beorcana fills a niche in book typography and also serves a wide range of purposes from fine print, cartography, and information design to signage, editorial design and invitations. Designed by Carl Crossgrove. “Beorcana has what it takes to become a classic.”
Agile TypefaceThis typeface was born as Endexamen of the postgraduate study TypeMedia in The Hague. Not released yet, but worth to be kept in mind.
Graphik“I ended up drawing inspiration from all parts of the 20th century. The heavy end of the family is based in part on Paul Renner’s Plak, a relatively obscure display typeface cut only in large sizes of woodtype, that is related to his heavier weights of Futura but has rounder, friendlier, fatter proportions”. By Christian Schwartz.
RondanaRondana is a tribute to the purity of line and futuristic aesthetics of the 60s and 70s. Geometry in service of Typography, rather than opposite.
Stag Sans“The normal/quirky balance is a bit different in the heavy weights, which are more likely to be used for enormous headlines. The final result is a perfect match for Stag, and also works as a muscular counterpoint to just about any elegant serif face.”
Candy ScriptInspired by Argentina and its culture, Alejandro Paul’s Candy Script captures the country’s spirit. It comes from the tradition of window sign painting, but its thick hand-brushed characters — with alternates for almost every upper and lowercase letter - have a personality all their own. Tons of OpenType alternates included, over 600 characters in all.
FF UtilityDesigned by Lukas Schneider. Comes in give weights — light, regular, medium, bold and black.
PublicoThe openness of the headline face made designing a matching text face very straightforward. Elegance gives way to sturdiness in the serifs, and the ball terminals are less pronounced, resulting in an even texture. Like Guardian Egyptian, Publico Text is drawn to work under the specific layout and printing conditions of newspapers but doesn’t take its design cues from traditional newspaper typefaces, resulting in a fresh and contemporary look.
AffairAffair is an new calligraphic typeface by Alejandro Paul with a party full of swash characters, ligatures, and ornaments. By default, it’s simply an elegant yet readable display face. Dress it up with alternates, and it becomes irresistibly attractive, in styles from glamourous to over-the-top.
PreloA large sans-serif family with 18 weights with ligatures, alternates, fractions, scientific inferiors, superscript, swashes, oldstyle figures, lining figures, tabular figures, numerators, denominators, ordinals and smallcaps.
DST GlosaA traditional, roman serif-family which comes in 8 weights (roman, roman italic, medium, medium italic, bold, bold italic, black, black italic) and has a number of additional features. OpenType.
OlicanaBeautiful hand-drawing in action. Comes in two weights — rough and smooth. Designed by Nick Cooke.
Malaga“At first glance Malaga has all the earmarks of a sturdy old style serif that would hold up well to any amount of reading. Healthy spacing, large x-height, short ascenders and descenders. It is the second glance that has you realizing that it is perfect as well for larger headlines and bolder statements.” A modern classic by Xavier Dupré.
FF Unit RoundedDesigned by Erik Spiekermann.
Arno Pro“A multi-weight, multi-style, multi-optical sized, multi-lingual family of fonts in the classic Venetian tradition. It comes bundled with Adobe Creative Suite 3, and it’s almost worth upgrading just to get Arno.” Designed by Robert Slimbach.
KinescopeKinescope is a dashing 1940s-style brush script. It was inspired by hand-lettered titles in Fleischer Brothers’ Superman cartoon series. This font features OpenType to automatically choose the most aesthetically pleasing letter shapes as you type as well as extended language support. By Mark Simonson.
AnzianoA typeface for books. When creating a traditional typeface, Stefan Hattenbach was influenced by earlier designs. Anziano shows touches of Weiss (Emil Rudolf Weiss, 1926) - another classic book typeface. Stefan had appreciated the design of Weiss for a long time.
Celeste Sans OTThis OpenType serif family comes in 10 weights.
SloopHand-writing: sexy, elegant, feminine and inviting.
Buffet ScriptBuffet Script is based on calligraphy by Alf Becker, arguably the greatest American sign lettering artist of all time. Buffet Script’s OpenType programming contains discretionary ligatures, stylistic and contextual alternates, all interacting with each other to allow the composition of just the typographic look and feel. This font is best used where lush elegance is a design requirement.
TrinitéClassic, created by Bram de Does in 1982.
DancerBy Morten Olsen.
Quiosco
National
ThesisAn ultimate corporate typeface, designed by Lucas de Groot. Including 144 fonts, both serif and sans-serif fonts.
NexusDesigned by William McChesney. Comes in bold, bold oblique, oblique and regular. Price: $49 for all 4 weights.
VesperCurrently in development.
Sources and Resources
- Typographica’s Favorite Typefaces of 2007 Typographica’s fourth annual review showcases the best in new typeface design.
- Typefacedesign.org Work from the MA Typeface Design class of 2007 at the University of Reading.
- 100 Best Typefaces Of All Time An outstanding selection by Fontshop.
- Type foundries: Fontshop.com, Emigre, Hoefler & Frere-Jones, Linotype and many-many more.
Slab serifs are distinct and immediately remarkable. Their block-like, thick, massive serifs stand out in any sentence, billboard, ad, or webpage on which they’re displayed. Much of the time, their strokes and stems are equally thick and bold to create a typeface that’s at once aesthetic and imposing.
Part of the serif family of typefaces, slab serifs feature those one-of-a-kind feet or little attachments at the ends of the strokes of individual characters in a typeface.
Uniquely, these serifs took the world by storm all of a sudden back in the early part of the 19th century, when more and more typographers and designers began to use them in widespread fashion. Since then, these fonts have become almost ubiquitous in the design of the world all around us.
Understanding what these fonts are, what they’re intended to do, and their unique place in typography will empower designers of all stripes to learn how to use slab serifs with more awesome results than ever.
The Origins of Slab Serifs
As far as typefaces are concerned, these serifs are relative newcomers to typography and design in general, especially when we compare them to serifs in general. Serifs have really been around since Roman times—they initially came out of the Latin alphabet and inscriptional lettering.
When Roman-era letter outlines were first painted onto stone, the stone carvers followed these outlines of the brush marks, yet their methods caused flaring to occur at the corners and ends of the letter strokes. This resulted in the serifs as we know them today.
On the other hand, slab serifs, which can be thought of as a subset of serifs in general, only really came into prominence in the beginning of the 19th century: The explosion of print advertising material necessitated more and more unique fonts that immediately captured the attention of readers. Slabs—with their bold, thick and imposing nature—naturally filled this role quickly.
They were first commercially made available under the name of “Antique,” when they were introduced by Vincent Figgins in 1815 to 1817. In spite of the initial explosion in their popularity, slab serifs suffered a decline in popularity as the century went on, primarily because they were competing with sans serifs, which were becoming more popular at the time.
Interestingly, Napoleon Bonaparte, the French military leader and dictator, played a part in the burgeoning cultural awareness of slab serifs. You see, Napoleon actually brought 167 scholars and scientists with him on his Egyptian campaign of 1798 to 1801 to help mask the real reason for it: to increase his power. Ostensibly, the campaign was to defend the trade interests of France and stifle his arch-rival Britain’s interests in the region, but it was really about his quest for empire.
After his Egyptian campaign ended in disaster and failure, his scholars and scientists nonetheless brought back to the West a lot of previously unknown knowledge about Egypt. As a result of this, the Western world in Europe and beyond developed a fascination with all things Egyptian, namely because French publications disseminated descriptions and images of exotic Egyptian culture.
This, in turn, led to furniture and home décor at the time being heavily influenced by Egyptian overtones, with lines of furniture being produced that were made to resemble the artifacts and treasures found in Egyptian tombs. Companies were even producing wallpaper that could transform your ordinary Western living room into something resembling an Ancient Egyptian temple.
So…how does this all relate back to slab serifs? Here’s how.
Around this time, due to the cultural rage of all things Egypt, slab serifs were increasingly being called “Egyptians,” even though there was no connection between this typeface and traditional Egyptian writing systems. Nonetheless, by the close of the 19th century, slab serifs were regularly being called Egyptian! Whether this was an honest mistake or a devious marketing gimmick is anyone’s guess.
Needless to say, this Egyptian craze that Napoleon kick-started with his campaign and scientific expedition had long-lasting ramifications in typography. The legacy of this naming confusion is preserved today, as some slabs invented in the 20th century have Egyptian-themed names to commemorate this interesting period, with examples being Cairo, Memphis, and Karnak.
In the 1920s, a second, major development occurred to slabs: They were increasingly being influenced by geometric design. As a result, more fonts of this kind were being created that featured a more monoline design that resembled some of the geometric sans serifs like Futura.
Today, slabs are some of the most popular fonts around that designers use with frequency in all sorts of projects.
Their Characteristics
Like all font families, slabs have their own, unique characteristics that make them unforgettable and ideal to use in specific situations. Designers will make better choices for their projects when they’re more familiar with the various elements of slab serifs:
- Terminals – Terminals are defined as the ends of strokes that aren’t terminated with serifs. The terminals on slabs are either rounded (as in the case of Courier) or angular and blunt (as in the case of Rockwell).
- Boldness – The boldness in slabs varies based on their purpose. For instance, slabs intended for ad displays have to be excessively bold because they’re meant to catch people’s attention. However, slabs used to be more legible at smaller sizes (such as for reading on devices or print) won’t be anywhere near as bold to still ensure readability.
- Stroke Width – The stroke width is defined as the straight or curved line in a character (think of the diagonal line in a capital N). Slabs have varying stroke width, again for various purposes. For example, slabs with a geometric design (such as Rockwell or Memphis) have a more consistent stroke width, which makes them easier to read, so they’re great for text. Alternately, slabs like Clarendon feature thicker stroke widths in the stresses of the Cs and the bowls of the Bs, making them better for headlines.
You can inspect and admire these fine characteristics of slab serifs in even greater detail by checking out our slab serifs category. In the meantime, here are several examples from our marketplace of some of the stunning typography that’s possible with slabs and to show you how to use slab serifs in aesthetic ways:
Different Groups of Slab Serifs
Think of slabs as a font family that has subsets of unique styles that together make up the entirety of this typeface. Whereas slab serif is the name of the general category, there are subgroupings within this typeface that draw attention to the variety and individuality of the slab fonts.
Here are the main groups:
- Egyptian or Antique – If you recall my abovementioned reference to Napoleon and his failed Egyptian campaign, you’ll remember this misnomer to describe slabs. This group mainly refers to the earliest styles of slabs, which were mostly monoline (featuring strokes that are monolinear or having little or no contrast at all between the vertical and horizontal strokes). They also bore a resemblance to 19th-century serifs like ball terminals.
- French Clarendon or Italienne – This group is noteworthy for the heaviness and thickness of their serifs (much heavier than the characters’ stems). As a result, French Clarendon slabs exhibit an epic and attention-grabbing effect. Unsurprisingly, they’ve traditionally been used in posters and other sensationalistic print announcements. Look for this group to feature prominently in the typography of Western movies as well. Most widely used in the 19th and early 20th centuries, it still remains in use today.
- Clarendon – Clarendon is unique among the other subgroups because its fonts feature a degree of bracketing and size contrast within the actual serifs. Since the serifs in Clarendon frequently have curves, they accordingly change in size by becoming wider as they begin to approach the main stroke of the characters. Many Clarendon fonts also bear a similarity to the serif font designs of the 19th century; that is to say they feature a significant difference in the stroke width between the vertical and horizontal strokes.
- Geometric Design – Here, there bracketing is gone, and the fonts in this group have evenly weighted serifs and stems. This consistency and balance make the fonts here a smart choice for cases where readability and legibility are a must—such as for smaller screens on devices. Some earlier well-known examples are Memphis, Tower, City, Rosmini, and Beton whereas later examples include Archer and Neutraface Slab.
- Typewriter – Quite straightforward, this category features font families that are used in strike-on typewriting. A characteristic here is that every character takes up the exact, same quantity of horizontal space. You no doubt have seen Courier; another example is Prestige Elite.
How to Use Slab Serifs in Famous Media
Even though slabs have only been around for a couple of hundred years or so, their rapid rise to popularity ensured that they were eventually being used with high visibility in all manner of media. Now, we take a look at some of the more high-profile places where slabs have been featured, so you can get an even better idea of how to use slab serifs.
The Montgomery Ward Logo
Montgomery Ward was a huge American retail chain that was liquidated in 2001. In the 80s and 90s, though, its logo prominently featured Serifa, a slab serif.
Because Montgomery Ward had a wordmark logo (or a text-only typographic treatment), it was easy for the company to use Serifa for its corporate identity.
Martha Stewart Living Magazine
Martha Stewart Living has been around since 1990, making it a long-running staple for home-decorating advice. For a time, the magazine experimented with slab serifs: It used the Archer font because the font was commissioned by the magazine for its typography.
The font was initially thought to be a great fit for this lifestyle magazine since its designers described it as a myriad of things that magazine publishers would want: easy to read, well-balanced, aesthetic and seamless to work with.
Amazon Kindle
Amazon’s popular e-reader is also not safe from slab serifs. Its default typeface is actually a slab named PMN Caecilia that’s found across a range of Kindles, from the older ones (the Kindle 7s) to its newer Paperwhites (3rd Generation). One of the reasons that this slab was chosen for the Kindle is its humanist-influenced origins, which make it ideal for easy reading.
Common Slab Serif Fonts
Ironically, PMN Caecilia was designed for a print environment, but its adaptability to the screens of devices like the Kindle speaks volumes for its readability and legibility.
Slab Serif Font Example
Thickness, Boldness and Versatility in Design
Now, you should have a much better idea of how to use slab serifs.
List Of Slab Serif Fonts
Slabs are a relatively young font style; they’ve only been around for 200 years or so. In that short timeframe, they’ve still been successful in making a huge impact in the design world. Naturally, it helps that none other than Napoleon Bonaparte and his infamous Egyptian campaign (for better or worse) helped to popularize these fonts in the public consciousness of the west.
Putting this brush with a noteworthy historical figure aside for a moment, perhaps what’s led to slab serifs’ popularity is their sheer functionality. This font family is great from everything like flashy and loud ad displays to much smaller reading sizes that are necessary for mobile devices and tablets. When a typeface features this much versatility, it’s bound to come to the notice of many typographers and consequently develop a large following.
If you’re looking to add some slabs into your designs and projects, simply head on over to our marketplace’s slab serif category, where we have hundreds and hundreds of slab serifs for any project.
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