The must to try fonts in the Year 2016
Hello reader! since you made it here, then obviously you are the one who understands the impact of beautifully presented text through the selection of a great font. For such font lovers I have hand picked, ten free fonts that got my attention. Just for the ease, I have first made a list, then shortlisted few and then arranged the selected ones in alphabetic order too. I am not a great fan of thick and bulky fonts as I personally like slim and thin fonts because they reflect the modern style. So all or most of the fonts I have selected for this post represent a slim typeface. You might have seen some of them earlier as I stuffed this list with the most of the best till now (both old and new).
Let’s have a look on these below:
Ananda Namaste
Beginning with the no.1 on my list is Ananda Namaste. Talking about the name, the first word Ananda belongs to its type designer Ananda K. Maharjan and the second word Namaste is a way greet or say Hello in Traditional Sanskrit and Hindi language.
These fonts date back to the year 2011 but if you look at the following samples, they all look fresh. When I first got my eyes on this font, I thought it might be just a few months or a year old, only until I read its actual date of creation I came to know how old they actually are. The MSP of these fonts that makes it differ from others is the use of curvy eye catching alphabets and obviously the straight horizontal line over every word. To sum up, I just want to say that this font family not just makes the use of a Sanskrit name but also the alphabets in the font are inspired from Sanskrit itself.
You can download these fonts for free at Behance.
Also, if you want to check out the Ananda Namaste Version 1 (aka Neptouch)
And the Version 2 (aka Neptouch Version 2)
However, both v1 and v2 misses the horizontal line of v3 (aka Ananda Namaste).
Antre
Antre, a free to download font by Taner Ardali from Istanbul, Turkey is a beautiful font that reminded me of my childhood days when I used to improve my writing via cursive writing books. This font looks like cursive writing but with more focus on using straight lines on the edges and curves inside of an alphabet.
The word Antre means a cave and therefore, the font itself looks like a hidden treasure usually found in a cave.
This font made its way to Behance, January this year and is available to download for free.
Alegreya Sans ht
Alegreya is a Sans Serif family typeface and contains a total of 28 differently sized and styled fonts. By differently sized, I mean to say the availability of different options to choose from such as Thin Italic, Light Italic, Medium Italic, Italic, Bold Italic and so on and with differently styled I mean with the desired sized font applied, some give a bold appeal to the text while some bring the softness. From this collection, most of the fonts resemble to those used in the vintage magazines and newspapers.
If I have to work on a website or a design representing the old era or If in case working on a Modern Retro design, I would love to try some fonts from this typeface.
You can download this font for free on their respective website.
Big John & Slim Joe
Big John / Slim Joe, designed by Ion Lucin from Madrid, Spain and are available on behance since the fall of 2014. These fonts are combination of two different styles, one that can be used to represent big and bold items to make an impact while the other one can be used to represent lighter and modern yet simple elements.
For a designer, this combination can work great to flaunt bold and classy headings as well as menu options using Big John while Slim Joe can do the job by adding simple and modern look to the body text.
You can check it out on Behance.
This font was also featured on American Institute of Graphic Arts AIGA’s website August last year.
Canter Sans Serif
Designed by Christopher J. Lee from New York, U.S.A., here comes another member of Sans Serif family, the font that goes by the name of Canter. Irrespective of the location been applied, upon its first look this font gives an impression of the text being representing a certain design brand. It looks great the way straight lined alphabets are used and stretched upwards. This soft styled type family includes six different fonts:
Light- to give text an attractive and sleek look.
Bold- brings similar feel of the light font but with strong impact.
Shadow- in addition to light style, drops a shadow after each alphabet.
Strips- allows alphabets to be written in the form of multiple faded tilted lines along with a dropped shadow.
Bold 3D- brings both bold and shadow style to the font, creating a 3D effect.
Outline- adds an outer skin to the light font style.
You can say Light is the base font and rest are toppings to improve the flavour.
You can check out the font at Behance as well as the developer site Font Fabric.
Deco Neue
Deco Neue designed by Jonatan Xavier from Brasil got my attention while I was looking for a font to fit my D alphabet list and I immediately started exploring the samples to make sure it’s worth inclusion. The USP of this font is that, every alphabet has a unique joining point within than the actual set of alphabets.
In my opinion, the modern and unique style of this font makes it an ideal choice to add a beauty as text for hip hop posters or represent futuristic items.
You can check out the font at Behance.
Fibon Sans
Fibon Sans made available on behance, February this year is designed by Valerio Del’Edera from Bari, Italy. With its soft and modern look, this font can be best used for logo’s and brand promotions. As per the description on behance, this font family also supports Che language (spoken in Nigeria). This font family comes with 6 different font sizes namely Extra Light, Light, Regular, Medium, Bold and Extra Bold. Not just sizes but these fonts do have alternative alphabet styles as well to fit your choice.
The use of straight lines in an alphabet and the use of smooth curves where required, makes the font look elegant among others of the similar breed.
Well if you really want to try it out then you can check the official Behance page of this font and download the regular font but if you are thinking of trying the full font family with complete 6 weights, then you have to get the pro for $15.
Hasta Grotesk
Hasta Grotesk, another sleek font from sans serif family is designed by Marco Ballarè from Torino, Italy. This font was designed back in September last year and is published on Behance in March this year. Don’t know what to say because without any extra style or design appeal, this font still looks amazing on first glance, thanks to its slim and sleek style.
You can check this font on Behance.
Jenna Sue
Jenna Sue, a font named by and as the name of its designer Jenna Sue is a nice font that can be used for the designs that reflect handwritten text, digital signatures, text in fashion magazine. In my opinion it can also be used for text and designs to represent anything that relates to younger generation such as for kindergarten website.
As per the Author’s Notes on DAFONT.COM, the free version of this font is completely free to use for both personal and commercial purpose without permission. However, if someone wants get the entire webkit then he/she has to buy it from JENNASUEDESIGN.COM.
Nexa Rust
Nexa Rust, a small name for a little big font family as It contains a bulky collection of 83 different styles of fonts for different tastes. The creation of this font family is a joint effort of four designers Radomir Tinkov, Svetoslav Simov, Ani Petrova & Vasil Stanev, all from renowned font design brand font fabric.
Since, the font family is big and so is the efforts of these designers. Thus, the whole collection is paid and costs $279 but it does have a free version for download which is limited to 5 different style of fonts namely Nexa Rust Slab, Sans, Script, Handmade and Extras.
You can check out the free version on Behance and the official site of Font Fabric where you can find both the free and paid versions.
That’s all I had for you in this post. I hope you enjoyed checking these awesome fonts from the start till the bottom of this page. Thank you for reading and if you have anything to add to, please drop your valuable suggestions in the comments below.
