We recently discussed how we and the companies we work with can create custom brand fonts to be owned by the company whose brand it is – something they can feel comfortable investing in into the future to be uniquely theirs. A recent example is our project in collaboration with DesignStudio for Treatwell – resulting in the Treatwell Sans custom font family.

The Client

Treatwell is a popular – and growing – hair and beauty bookings service, built around the largest website of its kind in Europe and a successful app. Founded in 2008 and born out of London, Treatwell has worked hard to establish itself as more than just a bookings platform. It offers style tips and news, keeps an eye out for up-and-coming salons, and makes sure customers and managers connect in a wider community. This wider service offering needed a full brand refresh, contracted to DesignStudio.

Rebranding

DesignStudio worked with Treatwell to brainstorm a design language for the new brand, creating something unique that represents Treatwell’s services and values from the ground up. Clean lines and a warm welcoming aesthetic were key features throughout this process.

It was also important to them that Treatwell’s pioneering offering was presented in a unique manner without ever seeming unattainable; Treatwell makes style and beauty treatments more accessible, so it must always seem welcoming rather than exclusive.

Creating that welcoming, universal atmosphere whilst tying Treatwell’s promotional materials together was clearly a job for unique font selection to be present throughout. It was decided that this brand font should also be unique to Treatwell, helping to set them apart from the competition.

The Font

HypeForType and exclusive partner F37 who have regularly provided custom font solutions for clients, were approached early in the process. In consultation with DesignStudio, they identified F37 Ginger as the closest of their fonts to the look being sought. Its modernist, geometric clean lines match to the clean, welcoming aesthetic Treatwell require, and it’s close enough in style to other sans-serif fonts to feel accessible, not exclusive.

A brief document was created which picked out certain changes to be made to certain characters and both HypeForType and Face37 put their talents to work making those modifications.

Once these adjustments had been made to the total satisfaction of DesignStudio in thin, light, regular, bold, and italic styles, the companies new brand font was officialy named Treatwell Sans. The brand then received a custom type family that completely unique to them with full ownership rights.

Digital and print ready versions of the fonts were provided as part of the process, and the new custom type family ‘Treatwell’ sans subsequently came alive throughout the Treatwell Brand in various forms. The first of which was the in creating web-optimised @font-face software for the new online presence of Treatwell.

Following on from a successful online website launch, various press and marketing campaigns were launched with the Treatwell Sans brand font in place, transforming their business from a booking site to a platform of for true self-expression.

The custom font has since grown organically throughout the brand identifying itself as one of the key components to make up the core Corporate Identity of Treatwell’s visual presence.

In a busy marketplace, the need for brands to communicate in a unique visual manner is more important than ever. HypeForType offers a comprehensive custom font service that is unique to those needs. Your brands typographic choice isn’t just a “font” it’s an emotion, and a bespoke voice that creates a way for your customers to connect with your brand. Use the power of type and contact us today for all your custom type enquiries, in turn through typography we’ll find a way to make your brand even more engaging to your customers.

 

 

 

You’re not alone. As fonts go, Times New Roman has been around since the 1930s. It’s been distributed with every copy of Microsoft Windows since Version 3.1, it’s a default for formal documentation and traditional typefaces, and if you’re reading a book, it’s probably printed in Times New Roman.

It’s hardly a surprise, given the font’s characteristic serif style and legibility, but it’s become so ubiquitous that its frankly rather unappealing when it comes to adding some panache to your projects.

In this article, we’re going to look at five fonts that provide refreshing alternatives for those tired of Times New Roman.

Adriane Text

Don’t let the name fool you – Typefolio’s Adriane Text is far from a French baby. Instead, it’s a crisp strong Serif font comprising of exceptional true italics, all without being too flamboyant. Adriane Text manages to present itself as a formal, decorative font without being excessive in its flourishes.

Grab it here.

 

Carrig

For something more stand-out without stepping too far away from the traditional type of Times New Roman, Paulo Goode’s Carrig is an eye-catching alternative that would look fantastic in any books, and up front and center within any headline that demands a distinctive Serif.

Click here if it takes your fancy.

 

Maga

If your problem with Times New Roman was a lack of a certain vintage flair, Maga’s the answer to your prayers. An interesting font that doesn’t look out of place on a formal document and yet would make for an excellent header or logo typeface, what Maga boasts is versatility.

Check it out for yourself.

 

Libertad

A departure from the Serif fonts above, we bring up Libertad because it’s a balanced and dynamic font that we think looks as clean on the page as Times New Roman does. This is a lovingly created font that strikes a great balance regardless of its weight. A recommended purchase for those wanting a font that’s truly a league above all others.

 

Accolade

The perfect blend of everything we’ve discussed above, as serif fonts go that can succeed Times New Roman, Accolade might well be the champion. It’s has a lot of the same characteristics of its forefather, such as its respectable neutral presence, but there’s something softer and more natural about the font that keeps it original.

Find it here.

 

The Times, They Are A-Changing

We’d be surprised if none of these fonts captivate you as an alternative to Times New Roman, but if we’ve not quite hit the mark here, we likely can in other areas. By all means check out our guide on choosing fonts for more advice in making sure that your font is conveying all that you want, and if you really want to get stuck in and search for yourself, check out our full and robust range of font categories.

 

We shine the spotlight on a lot of different kinds of font from time to time here at HypeforType, but sometimes it’s worth asking what you’re keeping under a spotlight.

There are a lot of different ways to browse our selection, but we keep tabs on which fonts are most popular. These are the fonts you guys are most likely to buy – and why? Well, we’ll let our readers be the judge. Take a look…

F37 Bella by Face37

An exclusive font to our site from the expert design skills of Face37 – one of the best font fountries working today – this Didot-inspired font is a great contemporary serif and stencil building on classical lines, evoking classic magazines and headline articles.

Download F37 Bella

Quainton by Sawdust

A font eight years in the making, Quainton is a beautiful reinvention of a classic font style, with slim, clean lines and striking artistry that speaks to an art deco sensibility. If you haven’t investigated Quainton yet – why not? Now is the time.

Download Quainton

Idler by Central Type Company

A beautiful layered all-caps font, Idler hearkens back to the classic cinema signs of yesteryear, creating a hopeful ambiance which looks to the future even as it stays rooted in a simpler time. Simply classic.

Download Idler

Turnright Bevel by Jamie Winder

Another multilevel type system, Turnright Bevel is a great font on its own which becomes something truly special when paired with Turnpike Display. This one deserves to be singled out as a designers’ dream; for that reason, it’s supplied exclusively as a vector font.

Download Turnright Bevel

Publica Play by FaceType

Few typefaces allow for the kind of flexibility in line weight that Publica Play can offer. At lighter weights it’s a beautiful, clean sans with just a little bit of character incorporated; at heavier weights the character comes to the fore. The result is an incredibly flexible font for almost any purpose.

Download Publica Play

Geometrica by Latinotype

With ten uprights and ten italics, there’s a lot of flexibility to Geometrica, too – we’re spotting some patterns in what our customers want right now! The inspiration is simple; upper case/lower case and small caps characters keep the same proportion. The result speaks for itself.

Download Geometrica

Alex Trochut/Neo Deco by HypeforType

Designed by Alex Trochut and built by HypeforType, Neo Deco is a new spin on old art-deco lettering by a designer with impeccable pedigree. Deco is clearly back in fashion – are you ready yet?

Download Alex Trochut/Neo Deco

F37 Ginger by Face37

A strikingly clean sans, F37 Ginger is the second of Rick Banks’ creations to make it to the top 10. The font gives modernist Swiss font work a contemporary geometric twist designed to bring it up to date in a second – and it certainly pops off page or screen as a result!

Download F37 Ginger

Aphrodite Slim by Typesenses

What’s next? How about a flexible font family in the calligraphic school, with many variations for slightly different takes on elegant handwriting drawing on all kinds of inspirations from lettering books to designers’ work. This is a great addition to any toolkit.

Download Aphrodite Slim

Sofia Pro by Mostardesign

Modernism is the watchword for this font, with a design that emphasises round curves and harmony in its design. The result is characterful at any weight, standing out easily and crisply. A fantastic condensed sans for use when you need to catch the eye.

Download Sofia Pro

Back in February we put the spotlight on our new range of font bundles – but as we noted back then, there’s a limited-time window on many of these deals!

As things have moved on since then, we thought it was high time to remind you that if you don’t drop by regularly, you’re going to miss out!

So what’s new?

Facetype Display Bundle

There’s a timer ticking away on FaceType Foundry’s FaceType Bundle. Designed as a showcase of the best display fonts they offer, this bundle provides no less than 44 fonts in an incredibly wide variety of styles; just compare the gothic/steampunk fusion that is Aeronaut with the amazing sans-serif Darjeeling, scaling from a very characterful but simple sans to one of the most quirkily ornamental sans fonts out there, and you’ll get a very clear idea.

Up until the end of June you’ll have the chance to own all these spectacular combining fonts for a shockingly low price. Designers who miss out on this opportunity are going to kick themselves!

Competition from Tipotype

Another display bundle on offer comes all the way from Uraguay.

TipoType’s entry into the display stakes carries 23 top-tier fonts, from simple but well-proportioned and characterful sans-serif pieces like Amelia Rounded (exclusive to the bundle) – which will make anything written in it pop on the screen – through the distinct, captivating multi-lined Arya variants up to the almost handwritten-styled sans of Libertad, passing through the spectacular Carmencita on the way.

This isn’t just a great bundle, it’s the sort of collection that can put a foundry on the map as something to watch later. There are plenty of dependable ‘workhorse’ fonts in TipoType’s Display Bundle, but there’s also some standouts that no other foundry would be likely to produce – and those are the ones that mark the Uraguayan design studio as one to watch for the future.

The Face37 Showcase

Longterm blog readers – and just about any regular visitor to this site – will know that the award-winning Face37 routinely creates new and amazing typefaces in a wide variety of styles. The F37 Bundle gives you an opportunity to put a whopping 35 of these fantastic fonts to work for you at a jaw-droppingly low price.

This isn’t just of interest to designers – anyone who cares about how their content is presented needs to have some of Rick Banks’ work in their typeface toolbox, ready for use – but again, a designer who fails to pick this one up is hurting their budget down the line.

 

 

As if our recent offers were not awesome enough, you’ll be pleased to hear we’re still releasing brand new releases with truly unmissable introductory offers. Hopefully this afternoons lunch hasn’t spoilt your appetite, as now it’s time for desert. With 16 weights ranging from Thin to Heavy, Atlan provides endless design opportunities, with an impressive 75% off the price tag to match!

Everyone of these sensational weights is another weapon in your arsenal in the war against boring design. Add the entire Atlan suite of 16 fonts to your type collection today for just £37.50, that’s another unbeatable deal from yours truly, HypeForType!

If you’re looking for the right font for personal correspondence, business use, logos, signs, or branding – or any other reason – picking out just the right one can be daunting. There are so many popular fonts out there, and more are available all the time.

So how do you choose?

Narrow Down the Field

Take a look at our Categories page. There are over forty options in there, with some overlap, all of which have a chosen example font showing – but there’s a lot of variety in all of them! By deciding which category your ideal font lies in, you can immediately cut out a huge percentage of fonts that aren’t appropriate right now.

A Lighter Example

Let’s take the Comic category as an example. The most famous font in this style, Comic Sans, is very popular for producing an informal, ‘fun’ style of notice at work or at home, but is one of the worst fonts ever invented. Never use this font! Please consider these instead.

Buttered Toast by Hanoded has a similar, quirky handwritten style but will stand out from all the others. Without leaving the category, though, you can find some very different styles which still carry that informal and fun tone – like Comicraft’s Bronto Burger, Scangraphic’s Flash SH, and the eye-catching HighJinkies, also by Comicraft.

Doing Business Your Way

Of course, these fonts tend to be used only for internal and ‘unofficial’ notices at work.

For something that your clients might see, there are many different options – we’ve recently looked specifically at corporate fonts and fonts for logo design, so you can pick up some specific tips there, or you can browse the serif and sans-serif categories to find traditional, businesslike designs which are still different enough to stand out.

(We’re particularly fond of Isidora by Latinotype, which is a beautiful clean font with a soft friendliness stemming from its rounded terminals.)

Complementary Fonts

Once you start browsing fonts you’ll quickly realise that having the perfect font for one thing doesn’t make it perfect for everything else.

Many of the fonts we carry are actually font families, with multiple options for style in the same overall feel – but you may also find yourself looking for a script or slab-serif font to serve as a ‘header’ font for publication, or just adding a couple of extras for variation.

If you want to maintain a unified appearance across different font styles, one of the best ways to do it is to look at the font foundry which designed your first font.

While they’ll offer many that don’t present that unified aesthetic, you know that they’re interested in that look, and there’s a good chance they’ll have tried another spin on it in another style.

 

The original Darwin sans turned heads, merging multiple vintage styles while keeping a close eye on the future. Darwin Pro is the next exciting evolutionary stage for a superb font from the Los Andes foundry. Darwin has been completely redrawn as the new Darwin Pro, with a contemporary minimalist’s eye and a wealth of awesome detail including cool alternates, brand new figure sets, 14 weights, and much much more. Shop Darwin Pro, and save yourself 82%…

         For a very short time we can offer the full flexible package of Darwin Pro for only £25! That’s a full 14 weights that shape the font right from slim and elegant to eye-catching and chunky, plus all the alternates, the new range of figures, italics on top and the promise of a truly workable sans that will fit expertly into your projects and help them evolve. Nothing stays still in nature or the font world, so catch Darwin Pro today to make sure that 82% discount is all yours…

When developing a brand identity, it’s important to make sure that everything about your company reflects that identity, from the company colours and logo right down to the fonts chosen for your written material.

As any designer worth their salt will tell you, you can say more about your company with the way the words you use look than you can with what those words say – and you can say it faster.

Developing a Brand Font

HypeForType and the foundries we work with are regularly approached by businesses looking to strengthen their brand identity by taking the extra step of adopting a ‘brand font’.

While smaller companies will often simply find an eye-catching serif or sans that both fits their style and stands out, as the business grows it becomes both more important and more economically sensible to take the extra step and not just buy a good font and use licence – but to buy a unique font to keep.

(Custom font created by F37 Foundry for Elixia, a nordic fitness brand).

(Elixia custom font in use throughout all Elixia health suites).

Putting This into Practice

There are many ways to do this, and whenever a business approaches us we’re very happy to walk you through the process – don’t hesitate to get in touch – but one of the most recent involved one of our favourite foundries (and one of our exclusive fonts), Face37 and the font F37 Ginger.

Now, Ginger is a beautiful clean sans in a number of weights, and it’s easy to see why Treatwell were interested; the beauty brand focuses on spa treatments, healthy looks, and the clean lines of Ginger sync up well with their brand identity.

(Custom font produced with for Treatwell).

They’d made their choice of style, and their brand refresh team at DesignStudio had identified F37 Ginger as the perfect fit – but they wanted to make sure that Treatwell would present something unique, and worked with HypeForType to modify certain characters in the font to create that unique style.

That done – and with some checks in place to ensure the fonts would be legible and attractive across all print and digital media – the Treatwell Sans font was created and exclusively licensed to the company.

Walking the Fine Line

Other clients don’t have the font they need in mind when they approach us and we work with them to help match brand language style and brand font style, then to create the unique version that fits even better.

(Custom brand font produced with branding agency Purple, for the London Worldskills event).

(Creating a unique, core brand identity through the power of a custom font).

(Rita Special in use through a variety of display signage at the Worldskills London event).

Whatever the case, there’s a fine line to be handled here, ensuring that your brand font is eye-catching and distinctive, but also that anything you need to release can be published in it without outstaying its welcome.

Throw in the need to be sure it supports all languages you do business in, and it’s the kind of challenge any designer relishes, and we’re looking forward to working with you to achieve something very special.

Why not get in touch and we can get started?

HypeForType introduces a whole new way to shop – Font Bundles! We have our first handful of amazing deals on huge numbers of fonts online now – you can check them all out here – and with bundle discounts reaching as high as 99% in some cases, these are not to be missed!

Perennial and Short-Term Bundles

Be sure to check back regularly on our bundles, as some are on strict timers and will only be available for a short time. With foundries like the ever-impressive Thinkdust and Yellow Design Studio joining in, these deals are not to be sniffed at – in fact, we’ll go further.

The Simple Fact

If you work with fonts – as a printer, editor, writer, designer, in magazine layout, in brand creation, laying out your pub’s menu – you cannot afford to miss out on these font bundles.

The best way to get carefully-curated selections in a wide range of different styles from some of the best foundries in operation today, these are indispensable to the professional – and maybe even more essential to those of us who just love to be able to use the right font for everything in our personal life.

Variety is the Spice of Life

No more wondering whether you’ve got a strong, clear serif or an eye-catching distressed font – one or two bundles like this can top up your collection and open up your options. We have specialist bundles all offering fonts in the same style (or collecting all the fonts in a group of font families, like the Nanami Premium Workhorse Bundle) and others which give you a snapshot of how a particular foundry works. These wider bundles give you a tool for every occasion – and they also tip you off to foundries, font families, and styles you should be keeping a closer eye on.

Don’t Take Our Word for it

You don’t have to take our word for it. These bundles have been cut down to the kind of price where it’s OK to buy before you try, knowing you’ll get a bunch of the best with HypeForType curating the selection for you.

 

If your business produces any printed material or display advertising that faces the outside world, the fonts you choose for that material become part of your corporate identity. Setting yourself apart from the crowd is as easy as finding a font that speaks to your corporate identity. So what are some great corporate looks just waiting to be adopted?

F37 Ginger – 8 fonts by Face37

This geometric take on the Swiss modernist style has enough weightings to provide multiple different tones across your document without ever breaking your corporate identity.

Shop F37 Ginger ›››

F37 Bolton – 8 fonts by Face37

These classical, smooth lines inspired by Günter Gerhard Lange are perfect for getting information across smoothly and effectively. Give yourselves an air of efficiency and professionalism in the smoothest way possible.

Shop F37 Bolton ›››

F37 Jan – 8 fonts by Face37

A crisp, smooth take on Jan Tschichold and Matthew Carter’s groundbreaking fonts, Jan’s pronounced ink traps mean it’s easy to print and use at any font size, making this typeface extremely flexible in how you choose to use it.

Shop F37 Jan ›››

Branding – 14 fonts by Latinotype

As the name suggests, Branding was developed with use in defining your brand in mind. One of its greatest strengths in this is the alternative characters offered, allowing you a clean, functional typeface where it’s easy to swap out one or two letters to create a distinctive, easily-recognisable effect with impact.

Shop Branding ›››

Corporative – 64 fonts by Latinotype

And for a sans-serif font with a clear and distinct personality there’s Corporative, the first font ever developed by Latinotype – who technically call it a ‘semi serif’, but the clean lines have us inclined to treat it as a sans for this article. With that said, they attended to this question themselves as you’ll shortly see…

Shop Corporative ›››

Corporative Sans – 64 fonts by Latinotype

And if you love the smooth, clean lines of Corporative but want to eliminate that semi-serif, the Corporative Sans typeface is perfect for you. It keeps the same level of personality (especially in the jaunty curve of the ‘c’) while trimming that semi serif away.

Shop Corporative Sans ›››

Proxima Nova – 144 fonts by Mark Simonson

A total reworking of 1994’s Proxima Sans, Provima Nova is a widely expanded font family which stands out from other sans-serif fonts without once sacrificing professionalism or readability.

Shop Proxima Nova ›››

Texta – 32 fonts by Latinotype

Texta’s tagline is ‘a sans for all’ and that definitely informs the design style of this beautiful typeface. Bringing a contemporary flair to a fusion of humanist and Gothic sans-serif styles, the geometric alternates also add an easy option to give your brand a distinct feel.

Shop Texta ›››