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There are 10,728 font families available on Fontshop.com – one of the largest font shops online. A new Macintosh computer will only have 140 fonts pre-installed, and 164 for Windows.

Here’s a selection of typefaces over the course of 120 years. Could this post inspire you to look for new refreshing font choices for your brand? Look at the bottom for further guidance on font hunting.

Alert: To prevent headaches, Comic Sans and Lobster are banned from this post.

News Gothic – 1900

Designer: Morris Fuller Benton
Foundry: American Typefounders
Classification: Sans-serif
Usage: Star Wars opening crawl, ABBA, Lady Gaga’s ‘The Frame Monster’ artwork

decade of typefaces news gothic

Johnston – 1910

Designer: Edward Johnston
Classification: Humanist san-serif
Usage: London Underground

decade of typefaces johnston

Gill Sans – 1920

Designer: Eric Gill
Foundry: Monotype
Classification: Humanist Sans-serif
Usage: BBC, John Lewis, Church of England’s prayer book

decade of typefaces gill sans

Times New Roman – 1930

Designer: Stanley Morison & Victor Morison
Foundry: Monotype
Classification: Serif/Old-style
Usage: Book publishing, The Times paper, Missing pet posters

decade of typefaces times new roman

Fairfield – 1940

Designer: Rudolf Ruzicka
Foundry: Linotype
Classification: Serif
Usage: Frances Ha film design type & website

decade of typefaces fairfield

Univers – 1950

Designer: Adrian Frutiger
Foundries: Deberny & Peignot
Classification: Neo-grotesque sans-serif
Usage: eBay, RAF, City of Westminster street signs, Swiss International Airlines, Ordnance Survey

decade of typefaces univers

Eurostile – 1960

Designer: Aldo Novarese
Debut foundry: Nebiolo
Classification: Sans-serif
Usage: Casio, Toshiba, Nokia, Subaru, Opel, French Connection

decade of typefaces eurostile

ITC Avant Garde – 1970

Designer: Herb Lubalin & Tom Carnase
Foundry: International Typeface Corporation
Classification: Geometric sans-serif
Usage: Adidas, Nutella, Mobil, Macy’s Lubalin’s logo for Avant Garde Magazine

decade of typefaces itc avant garde

Avenir – 1980

Designer: Adrian Frutiger
Foundry: Monotype
Classification: Sans-serif
Usage: Aol, Nationwide, Spotify, huge Iamsterdam sign

decade of typefaces avenir

Meta – 1990

Designer: Erik Spiekermann
Foundry: FontFont
Classification: Humanist san-serif
Usage: Stockholm Metro signage, Deutsche Bundespost (German Post Office)

decade of typefaces meta

Gotham – 2000

Designer: Tobias Frere-Jones
Foundry: Hoefler & Co.
Classification: Geometric sans-serif
Usage: Obama’s HOPE campaign

decade of typefaces gotham

Open Sans – 2010

Designer: Steve Matteson
Foundry: Ascender Corporation
Classification: Humanist sans-serif
Usage: Popular font choice for web design

decade of typefaces open sans

Font Shops

The best font shops online are Fontshop, FontFont, Linotype & Monotype. Web-friendly fonts can be found on Google fonts and Adobe Typekit. Free fonts are usually very poor in quality whereas the more expensive ones are more likely to be proven to work well and have decent versatility – the spacing in-between the letters from free fonts tends to be dodgy. As there are so many fonts to choose from, I suggest you use the search filters to help you find your new font.

What the font is that?

Myfonts enables you to upload a screenshot and sometimes it will give you an accurate answer as to what font is in front of you. There is also a Google Chrome plugin called WhatFont which can be used to identify fonts while surfing on the web. https://www.myfonts.com/WhatTheFont/

Not for the thousandth time!

Avoid fonts that you’ve seen far too many times. A step forward is to go for something different, new and refreshing. This could subconsciously motivate you too.

Image credit: Oxford Street sign in London, Shutterstock