Creative Boom asked us recently for our view on the font trends for 2023. Creative Director Chris Skelton shared his view.
Creative Boom explained:
"Once you've been a designer long enough, it's common to find yourself sticking to the same, tried-and-tested typefaces year in, year out. But while that may make it easy to keep churning out good, solid, dependable designs, it does run the risk of becoming... well, a little boring.
So it's always good to look for new fonts that can help you mix things up, experiment, and hopefully come up with visuals that will entice and excite you.
To help you stay abreast, each year, we put a lot of effort into researching the fonts that are currently in use throughout the design world and whittle down the most important, useful and intriguing ones for you to consider. (Check out last year's roundup here). While our list can never be fully comprehensive, we hope it gives you a flavour of how 2022 has shaped next year's big expected hitters and what fonts will likely be big in 2023.
Of course, just because a particular font is "trending" doesn't mean you should use it. But you should at least keep your mind open to the possibility. In the words of Sarah Hyndman, author of the bestselling book Why Fonts Matter: "What I'd say about type trends is for designers not to get too hung up on them and to focus on what's appropriate for the audience. However, I've always found trends fascinating because they reflect the cultural attitudes of the moment."
With that in mind, below, you'll find 40 fantastic fonts for 2023. First, though, let's set some context as our experts point to some key font trends that have characterised 2022 so far, and we can expect to see more of over the coming 12 months."
The trusty Geometric sans builds on its legacy
Is there no end to the enduring love of geometric sans? Inspired by near-perfect circles and squares, born out of Germany in the 1920s, its pioneers, Herbert Bayer, Jakob Erbar, and later Paul Renner, laid the foundations for what the design world still fondly uses today. But will 2023 continue to embrace this beloved group once more? Particularly as we look to timeless and familiar designs that build trust and stability in a seemingly chaotic world.
Interestingly, Creative Director Chris Skelton of branding agency Thompson believes we'll see brands actually move away from these typefaces that have prevailed for the past few years in search of "more ownable and distinctive styles". He says: "At the very least, big brands will look to customisation to ensure ownability over a very congested style — there's lots of good to be said of the geometric sans though, it's approachable, clear, accessible, unfussy and easy to use so it'll still be a fallback and easy to say 'yes' to style for many."
