17 Open Source Fonts You’ll Actually Love

The right typeface can make or break your website. As designers, we will always be naturally drawn towards the premium fonts such as Circular, DIN, or Maison Neue; Before you know it, your website is racking up a font bill larger than your hosting bill.

We’ve put together a list of open-source fonts that will rival your fancy fonts, and might even persuade you to switch them out. All the fonts listed here are completely open-source, which means they’re free to use on both personal and commercial projects.

Manrope

Manrope has sprung onto the font circuit in style, with a website better than most early startups. It’s a variable font, which means you have a flexible range of font weights to choose from in a single font file. Manrope is a personal favorite of mine, it has every ligature you could want, and is fully multi-lingual. It’s a lovely bit of everything as it states on the website: it is semi-condensed, semi-rounded, semi-geometric, semi-din, semi-grotesque.

Gidole

DIN – the font we all love, the font that looks great at every size, and the font that costs quite a bit, especially with a large amount of traffic. Gidole is here to save the day, it’s an open-source version of our favorite – DIN. It’s extremely close to DIN, but designers with a keen eye will spot very few minor differences. Overall, if you’re looking to use DIN, try Gidole out before going live. (There is also a very passionate community around the font on Github)

Inter

Inter is now extremely popular, but we wanted to include it as it’s become a staple in the open-source font world — excellent releases, constant updates, and great communication. If you’re looking for something a bit fancier than Helvetica and something more stable than San Francisco, then Inter is a great choice. The font has now even landed on Google Fonts, making it even easier to install. As of today: 2500+ Glyphs, Multilingual, 18 Styles, and 33 Features… do we need to say more?

Overpass

Overpass was created by Delvefonts and sponsored by Redhat, it was designed to be an alternative to the popular fonts Interstate and Highway Gothic. It’s recently cropped up on large ecommerce sites and is growing in popularity due to its large style set and ligature library. Did we mention it also has a monospace version? Overpass is available via Google Fonts, KeyCDN, and Font Library.

Public Sans

Public Sans is a project of the United States Government, it’s used widely on their own department websites and is part of their design system. The font is based on the popular open-source font Libre Franklin. Public Sans has great qualities such as multilingual support, a wide range of weights, and tabular figures. The font is also available in variable format but this is currently in the experimental phase of development.

Space Grotesk

Space Grotesk isn’t widely known yet, but this quirky font should be at the forefront of your mind if you’re looking for something “less boring” than good old Helvetica. Space Grotesk has all the goodies you can expect from a commercial font such as multiple stylistic sets, tabular figures, accented characters, and multilingual support.

Alice

Alice is a quirky serif font usually described as eclectic and quaint, old-fashioned — perfect if you’re looking to build a website that needs a bit of sophistication. Unfortunately, it only has one weight, but it is available on Google Fonts.

Urbanist

Urbanist is an open-source variable, geometric sans serif inspired by Modernist typography. Designed from elementary shapes, Urbanist carries intentional neutrality that grants its versatility across a variety of print and digital mediums. If you’re looking to replace the premium Sofia font, then Urbanist is your best bet.

Evolventa

Evolventa is a Cyrillic extension of the open-source URW Gothic L font family. It has a familiar geometric sans-serif design and includes four faces. Evolventa is a small font family, generally used across the web for headlines and bold titles.

Fira Sans

Fira Sans is a huge open source project, brought to you, and opened sourced by the same team that makes Firefox. It’s Firefox’s default browser font and the font they use on their website. The font is optimized for legibility on screens. (And it’s on Google Fonts!)

Hack

Building a development website, or need a great code font to style those pesky code-blocks? Then Hack is the font for you. Super lightweight and numerous symbols and ligatures. The whole font was designed for source code and even has a handy Windows installer.

IBM Plex

IBM needs no introduction. Plex is IBM’s default website font and is widely used around the web in its numerous formats Mono, Sans, Serif, Sans-Serif, and Condensed – it has everything you’d need from a full font-family. The whole font family is multi-lingual, perfect for multi-national website designs. (It’s fully open-source!)

Monoid

Another great coding font, Monoid is a favorite of mine for anything code. The clever thing about Monoid is that it has font-awesome built into it, which they call Monoisome. This means when writing code, you can pop a few icons in there easily. Monoid looks just as great when you’re after highly readable website body text.

Object Sans

Object Sans (formally known as Objectivity) is a beautiful geometric font family that can be used in place of quite a few premium fonts out there. The font brings together the top qualities of both Swiss neo-grotesks and geometric fonts. The font works beautifully as large headings but can be used for body content as well.

Lunchtype

Lunchtype has a very interesting back-story, originally designed during the creator’s daily lunchtime during a 100-day project. If you’re looking for something a bit “jazzier” than the typical Helvetica for your project, then Lunchtype is a perfect choice. The family comes with numerous weights as well as a condensed version — enough to fill any lunchbox.

Jost

Inspired by the early 1920’s German sans-serif’s, Jost is a firm favorite in the open-source font world. Jost brings a twist to its closest web designer favorite Futura. When you want a change from the typical Futura, then Jost is a great option with its variable weighting as well as multilingual support.

Work Sans

Work Sans is a beautiful grotesk sans with numerous little eccentricities that may delight or annoy some designers. The font has variable weighting, multilingual support and is optimized for on-screen text use but works perfectly well for print also.

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Popular Design News of the Week: August 3, 2020 – August 9, 2020

Every week users submit a lot of interesting stuff on our sister site Webdesigner News, highlighting great content from around the web that can be of interest to web designers.

The best way to keep track of all the great stories and news being posted is simply to check out the Webdesigner News site, however, in case you missed some here’s a quick and useful compilation of the most popular designer news that we curated from the past week.

16 Impressive SVG Animations

 

EazyCSS

 

Qube – A Virtual Office for Remote Workers

 

Brick.do – Free Notion-Like Tool for Zero-Hassle Website Making

 

Feather CMS – A Modern CMS on Top of Swift & Vapor

 

RevKit – Design System UI Kit

 

ColorFlick – Friendly Color Palette for Dribbble

 

21 Fabulous UX Design Infographics

 

Papercups – Open Source Live Customer Chat

 

Speculative Design Methods & Tools

 

Logo Process: RosyBee Plants for Bees Logo & Identity

 

HockeyStack – No-Code Analytics Tool

 

DeGoogle my Life

 

THEREMIX – Virtual Theremin

 

ReAim – ReMarketing Platform

 

2020 Helped Me – What’s been Good About your 2020?

 

Digityl Vinyl – Magical Vinyl Record Audio Filters

 

New Logo for Mars 2020

 

Getting the Most Out of Variable Fonts on Google Fonts

 

Adobe XD Vs Sketch Design Tool Showdown

 

Redesigning Famous Icons Using 3D Neumorphic Designs

 

How to Generate Extra Income as a Designer

 

One Task at a Time: The Key to Achieving Deep, Focused Work

 

How to Get Visitors to a New Website

 

Meet the YouTuber Who’s Schooling Developers on How Blind People Really Use Tech

 

Want more? No problem! Keep track of top design news from around the web with Webdesigner News.

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Web Design for Seniors: UX From a Mature Perspective

It’s no secret that the senior population is growing. By 2030, people over the age of 65 are predicted to make up 20.6% of the population of the US. 

Around the world, people are living longer and remaining more active in the later years of their lives. What’s more, despite what you might have heard in the past, seniors aren’t as wary of the internet as they used to be. In 2019, the Pew Research institute revealed that 73% of people over the age of 65 were connected to the web. 

So, what does that mean for web designers?

your main focus needs to be on ability…people age differently

Well, first of all, it’s time for all of us to start thinking about user experience from different perspectives. We need to stop expecting our audiences to be made up entirely of iPhone-using millennials and start thinking about the needs of seniors too. After all, designing websites for seniors opens you up to a wide selection of potential visitors in the future.

What’s more, according to the US Census Bureau, people over the age of 65 generally have the highest household wealth figures of any age group. That’s a big deal. 

So, how do you adapt UX for seniors?

Creating Senior-Friendly Web Designs

When it comes to designing websites and applications for seniors, your main focus needs to be on ability. Age is just a number, and people age differently. 

That means that one person in their 70s might have no problem browsing through Netflix to watch the latest shows, while someone else wouldn’t be able to tell you what ‘streaming’ means. 

Rather than worrying specifically about age, think about how different people in older age groups might have different requirements when it comes to things like movement control, hearing, vision, and even device bias. 

Get the Visual Elements Right

Vision loss is by far the most common disability reported by elderly individuals in the US. Around one in six people over the age of 70 have some manner of visual impairment. That’s why UI designers need to think carefully about visual accessibility when creating the right websites. 

For instance, text and button sizes should always be kept large. Anything that needs to be read or clicked needs to be scaled up, to ensure that everyone can see the information clearly. For instance, on the Sandinmysuitcase.com website, you’ll find clear typography, combined with big buttons that tell you to “Start Here” so you know exactly what to do next.

Remember to stick to icons that are clearly labelled wherever possible. Stay away from anything that your customers might not understand. “Start Here” is easier to read and understand than “Submit”. 

It’s also worth sticking to the color and contrast guidelines laid out by basic UX design when you’re creating something for optimal visibility.  Colors that are too close together might create a nice pastel or gradient effect on a website – but they’ll also make things difficult to read. 

Concentrate on Usability

Over the age of 55, motor skills and coordination can begin to decline for some people. These changes make it harder for people to interact with complex UIs. The mouse on a computer can be a particular problem for people with diminishing motor skills – as can the touchscreen of a tablet or smartphone. 

When you’re working on the perfect UX, think about how you can make things as easy to click as possible for people who have a hard time hitting their targets. For instance, in this website for people traveling over the age of 50, you’ll see not only fantastic large font choices but big buttons that are descriptive and easy to understand too: “Click here to start planning your trip”:

The scrollbar can also be a bit of a problem for people with impaired motor skills. Because of this, it’s best to keep your focus on designing above the fold. Make sure that users don’t need to scroll far to find the information that they need and keep scrollbars simple in terms of their look and feel.

While you’re working on usability, remember that it will be important to keep interactions to a minimum wherever possible. Where you can engage younger audiences with double-taps, swiping and scrolling, it’s much easier to connect with seniors through simple one-tap interactions. The less actions your user needs to take to reach their goals, the better. 

Deliver Smooth Navigation 

Navigating from point A to B on your website needs to be as simple as seamless as possible. Remember, crowded pages on your websites and apps are often overwhelming – even for younger browsers. Seniors are generally just searching for “must know” information, so they don’t want anything to get in their way as they navigate through their website. 

As you work on your site or app design, ask yourself if every element on the page absolutely has to be there. If it doesn’t deliver value, then get rid of it. 

Additionally, remember that seniors don’t always have the best memories and concentration levels. That means that they need your navigation experience to be as simple as possible. Basic horizontal menu bars that show everything at once are often a good idea – even if they’re not very exciting.

Look at this helpful navigation experience from RetireMove.com, for instance. Everything you need is located at the top of the page, and you can even just enter your postcode to get started:

Cognitive decline happens regularly with age. Although not all older adults will have issues with their memory and concentration, it’s important to be prepared for an audience that might process information a little more slowly. It’s worth double-checking that your viewer’s attention isn’t being diverted to multiple parts of the page at once.

Get to the Point Quickly

While younger generations have quickly implemented technology into every aspect of their lives, older consumers use tech a little differently. These people don’t want to spend forever fiddling around with different parts of your website. They want to get the answers to their questions as quickly and easily as possible. 

Applications that are complicated or difficult to access are usually instantly rejected by seniors. Even if you’ve offered everything that we’ve covered above, from seamless navigation to minimalist design, you still won’t get the interactions you’re looking for if older adults don’t consider your design to be useful. 

Because of this, you need to highlight the point of a website or application to your seniors as quickly as possible. Avoid worrying about things like gifs, animations and gamification. Instead, focus on making sure that your designs are useful and simple. 

For instance, from the moment your senior user arrives on a web page, they should have instant access to clear instructions on how to use the application or service, and what they need to do next. Keep in mind that this is particularly important when you’re creating mobile apps, as apps are still a relatively new concept to older generations. 

On the “When They Get Older” website, you can instantly find the information you need in a well-organized navigation bar that’s labelled clearly:

A clear interface like this, combined with simple, step-by-step guidance that shows elderly individuals how to get the information that they want is the key to keeping these users coming back for more. 

Bringing a Mature Perspective to Web Design

These days, most designers focus heavily on younger audiences when creating websites and apps. After all, it’s these users that allow us to experiment more with the latest tools and concepts, like augmented reality, artificial intelligence, and robust animations. 

However, there’s still a market out there for the seniors of the world that want more opportunities to get online. This audience often goes ignored and under-served. However, as the value of older consumers grows, and their ability to interact online increases, you’ll find that more businesses begin to search for web designers who can provide immersive experiences for a more mature audience. 

The steps above will give you an excellent insight into how you can start designing for a different kind of customer base. However, remember that the best way to make sure that you’re delivering the right solution for any customer, is to test. User testing will provide you with the exclusive insights that you need to determine whether your senior UX is really working, or whether you’re still struggling to get into the shoes of an older user. 

 

Featured image via Unsplash.

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