As we enter the new year, it is time to consider what fonts and font trends will be on the rise in 2023. These can define this year’s aesthetic, so it is essential to do adequate research on the topic. Whether you are a designer, marketer, or just someone who wants to ensure their projects look stylish, choosing the right font can make a big difference.
Our team of designers and developers here at Perpetual are constantly having to make insightful font choices for clients, so we see the trends come and go. We have picked 10 fonts that are likely to be popular in 2023 and noted a few themes among them, such as vintage and geometric.
We’ve seen a rise in big, bold, and geometric fonts and predict that will continue in 2023. These fonts are characterized by their thickness, strong presence, and use of geometric shapes. We have noticed that big, bold, and geometric fonts are often used to make a statement or to draw attention to a specific element of a design. Geometric fonts refer to their geometric construction, they use triangles, straight lines, circles, et cetera to form shapes. Out of the picks from our list, we believe that Stratos, Rupert, and Khlorla fall under this common theme.
Stratos by Production Type was designed by Yoann Minet and is classified as a geometric grotesque. The font is inspired by 20th-century gothic wood type and challenges the user to rethink what they know about weight and width, all while remaining a balanced feel. This proportional uniqueness allows users to play around and create interesting projects. We believe that this font would be a great choice for an interactive website, as dynamic designs can be made from the font family’s range. You can see in the image below that brands are using Stratos to make a bold statement and start the conversation.
Rupert was designed by Kaja Słojewska at Nomad Fonts. Rupert is a geometric sans font with broad language support. Described by Słojewska as “your new best friend”, this font certainly feels playful. It is great at making an impact on your typography. This font has 8 different weights and can help highlight an important fact or figure.
Khlorla by Maulana Creative is a semi-geometric sans serif font. This typeface only has one font, so it is meant for bold designs. Khlorla has a fun character with its soft edges stroke, making it a great choice. Maulana Creative recommends using Khlora for logo design, social media, movie titles, and book titles. Distinct and effective, Khlorla is a font to watch out for in 2023.
In 2023, it is likely that big, bold, and geometric fonts will continue to be popular due to their ability to add impact and visual interest to a design.
Can fonts be thrifty? Fonts that emulate another era feel nostalgic to some and can make an emotional appeal to viewers. These fonts below are characterized by their vintage aesthetic, which includes elements such as distressing, rough edges, and a lack of perfection. Viewers feel a sense of character when looking at these fonts. Some of these fonts take notes from previous ways of writing like calligraphy and vintage lettering. While this trend has been on the rise for a while, we will surely see a boom in 2023.
Glamour Absolute was created by Nicky Laatz and the name speaks for itself. She described the font as “a two-faced beauty: modern or vintage”. This is a versatile font, with 3 different styles and many alternate letters and ligatures to choose from. The vintage look is easily captured by adding a fun alternate letter, if you alter more letters the more of a heavy vintage look you create. On Nicky Laatz’s site, the purchase of this font also comes with a free Photoshop template to add subtle noise texture so you can enhance the effect even further.
Rustea by Yukita Creative is a typeface that has modern and vintage curves, making it great for 2023. This font has crisp lines and excellent readability, which is great for accessibility purposes. The vintage appeal of this sans serif font is its line weight variation, thin in spots and heavy in others.
Laguna Vintage is a font by Aiyari Studio—trusted by Instagram, Netflix, Epic Games, SEGA, Canva, Disney, and many more. Laguna Vintage was inspired by American motor inn signs and restaurant signs from the 50s to the 70s. This font also comes with open-type features like ligatures and has free graphics as one of its alternate fonts.
The return to vintage is always around the corner, so we expect these 3 fonts and ones similar in style to have a moment in 2023.
Sans serif fonts are useful for many reasons, they are accessible, legible, modern, et cetera. In 2023, our focus will be on Inter, Open Sans, and Bebas Neue Pro because they are suited for professional and enterprise apps.
Designed by Rasmus Andersson, Inter is a typeface made for computer screens. It was built to be the sharpest and most pixel-perfect font for small text sizes. At Perpetual, our designers use Inter in our projects as it is versatile and great for accessibility purposes. A professional app benefits from having high levels of accessibility because it widens the range of users and enhances the overall experience.
While commissioned by Google, Steve Matteson designed Open Sans. This clean font was designed for legibility on web, mobile, and print. It has become one of the most common sans serifs in use today because of its legibility. Open Sans is modern and sophisticated, making it perfect for capturing that professional feel.
As a revision to his previous all-uppercase font, Bebas Neue Pro was designed by Ryoichi Tsunekawa in 2019. Font Fabric describes the typeface as "staying true to the style and grace of Bebas with its familiar clean lines, elegant shapes, a blend of technical straightforwardness and simple warmth, which makes it uniformly proper for web, print, commerce, and art".
Professional fonts are not going anywhere and will continue to rise in 2023 due to most audiences being able to easily understand their text. We recommend the three above if you want your app to feel modern and professional, contact us today at Perpetual if you want to get your next project off the ground.
While this font doesn’t necessarily fit into one of these themes, we still thought it deserved recognition. Our final font is Minipax by Raphaël Ronot at Velvetyne Type Foundry. Velvetyne designs open-source fonts, meaning they can be used, modified, and redistributed freely. Minipax was inspired by George Orwell’s 1984, designed to fit in within the gritty universe of the Orwellian dystopia. With many alternates, ligatures, special characters, and diacritics, the font was made to give a demanding typographer a large number of choices. While the font is inspired by a film, it is still extremely applicable and practical. We believe we will be seeing a lot of fonts developed with specific creative influences in 2023.
As font trends come and go, it is important to recognize the themes that bind them in order for your future projects to be successful. We’ve noticed big, bold, and geometric fonts make strong visual statements and do not expect a return to thin fonts similar to script. Vintage inspired fonts are here to stay and bring a sense of nostalgia that is irreplaceable. Accessible and professional fonts are defining the future of design as they overcome any challenges of legibility. These font trends are pushing 2023’s typefaces into a bold and more accessible world.
Those were our 10 fonts that will define 2023. If you enjoyed learning about these fonts, share this post with your fellow designers and whoever else might enjoy this content.
