Font Chart Toppers: Recent bestsellers

  Creative, Design, Rassegna Stampa
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February 1, 2022

Last week, I looked back at 2021 releases and chose ten favorites. Today’s typefaces kind of chose themselves — or more precisely, you chose them! These are ILT’s top-five chart-toppers or bestsellers. It’s great to see world scripts represented, with support for Arabic, Cyrillic, Greek, and Latin. So, without further ado, and in no particular order, your top five:

Comma Base

Comma Base
Martin Majoor

A typeface that asks us to reexamine the difference between sans serif and serif typefaces, and is a reminder that great text typefaces don’t necessarily need serifs!  Comma Base’s counterpoised rounded and chiseled forms not only produce some splendid counter shapes, but also lend the entire design the aplomb and splendor of those ancient and seminal roman Capitals. I recommend it for settings from editorial design to books; and, it makes a superb webfont! Comma Base was also featured on Oliver Schöndorfer’s Font Friday.

Platia

Platia
Omega Type Foundry

From Toshi Omagari’s fledgling Omega Type Foundry, a brand new low contrast, wide-stance ‘Western’ slab serif typeface. Platia is a fresh-faced revival of the Hellenic Wide style popular in the 19th century. It retains the wide slab look while updating the details, especially curled legs in letters like R and K. Platia comes in 9 weights and also supports Greek and Cyrillic. It’s a magnificent design, and right now this masterpiece is half price. It was also featured in My Favorite Fonts of 2021.

Brill

Brill
Tiro Typeworks Ltd

From Tiro Typeworks, Brill is a modern-day classic. And it’s much more than a pretty face. If you’re looking for a reliable, readable typeface for extended texts, with incredibly broad language and script support (Latin, Greek, & Cyrillic), then Brill is an obvious choice. It’s also proof that workhorse text typefaces needn’t be dull.

Sanserata

Sanserata
Typetogether

The late great Dr Gerard Unger’s celebrated sans, designed in 2012, is typical of Unger’s work: He makes it look so easy. Sanserata is a sans serif text face with enough weights and styles to make it useful for countless applications from editorial and web to branding and beyond. Some of the slightly softer or more informal letterforms (e, f, g, h, i, l, n, y, and z) also come with more formal or ‘businesslike’ alternate forms. The articulated or flared terminals (ends of strokes) introduce warmth into the design and are a boon for reading on screen. Ostensibly invisible at smaller sizes, at display sizes those details come into their own as a feature, and proudly affirm its Romanesque inspiration and heritage.

Sakkal Kitab

Sakkal Kitab
Sakkal Design

Even those unfamiliar with Arabic will surely appreciate the beauty of Sakkal Kitab’s letterforms. From father and daughter super-duo Mamoun and Aida Sakkal, it’s no surprise to us that this new release is a bestseller. Sakkal Kitab is an exquisite traditional Naskh typeface that preserves the elegance and beauty of calligraphic Arabic. Sakkal Kitab, ‘kitab’ meaning ‘book’, is drawn in a contemporary fashion but manages to seamlessly marry hallowed tradition and heritage with modern-day aesthetics. The calligraphic mastery and skill of the exemplar letterforms has been beautifully carried through to the digital fonts with remarkable grace and equanimity.

All of these typefaces — Comma Base, Platia, Brill, Sanserata, and Sakkal Kitab — are available to test and license on ILT right now. Some, like Platia, are on sale for a limited time. If you have questions about these typefaces, get in touch! The above typefaces are just the top five. To discover hundreds more quality typefaces and thousands of fonts, from the best indie foundries, start by visiting our homepage.