No matter how hard we may hang onto our favourite pair of jeans and go-to hairstyles, changes in trends are inevitable: what’s fashionable one year may not be fashionable the next. Trends ebb and flow, and the same goes for fonts – every year, new fonts and font trends come to light, promising us new ways to express ourselves.
Quirky fonts have reigned supreme in the last two years, and we expect that 2022 will be a little calmer – consumers are looking to be reassured, and brands can easily stand out if they use fonts that comfort and soothe. But calm doesn’t mean boring – and it seems that the font trends in 2022 will offer us a very exciting year of typography. From soft-edged to retro, here are some typefaces we think will popular in the coming months:
Varied Versatility: Cotford
A contemporary serif from Monotype Studio’s Creative Type Director Tom Foley, Cotford is a languid serif with a wide range of weights. From delicate thin typefaces that bend like flower stems, to bold heavy weights that command the page and screen with confidence and vintage charm, Cotford’s layered versatility is a treat for designers.
Foley set out to create a soulful, modern serif typeface for designers to experiment and play with, and Cotford’s changeable font opens up a wide range of visual expression, allowing designers to experiment with different weights, contrasts, and optical sizes until they find the ideal weight, contrast, and optical size for their project. With its classic paradigm of three text and five display weights, it’s a great choice for brands looking to create online reports, brochures, as well as larger physical designs including books and billboards.
It’s Grooooooovy: Quinllyk
We’re going back to the 1970s with Quinllyk, a retro serif font series with thick, curved lettering. Assertive and cheery, Quinnlyk conjures spinning records, bell bottom jeans, and questionable hair products.
With its expansive terminals and fillagrees, this font conveys a fantastical, adventurous atmosphere thanks to the font’s flowing curves that give it a sense of life. The broad serif and unique shape make this typeface suitable for a wide range of projects, including branding, logos, wedding designs, social media posts, commercials, product packaging, and any other projects that require a touch of handwriting.
With over 50 alternative characters and ten ligatures, this typeface offers something for everyone.
In The Heights: Flexible
One of the most innovative fonts we’ve seen so far, Flexible is a modern, changeable, all-caps sans serif font. Its mixed-width typographies have a fun, graphic appeal that make them a variety of designs – product packaging, book and report covers, and so on.
Created by art director and illustrator Art Grootfontein, Flexible was inspired by late-19th century gothic typefaces from broadsheets and with animation in mind, the versatile uppercase designs come in eight widths and e heights, as well as a changeable version font that promises endless font possibilities. Using variable font technologies, designers can easily tinker with each letter height and width.
To maximise the font’s legibility, use a chunky sans serif font and use high-contrast colour palettes to make your message stand out. This font family is ideal for eye-catching design work, and it’s well-suited for both print and digital applications including advanced web design or kinetic typography. Use mixed-width fonts for tasks that demand a little quirkiness.
Soft and Smooth: Visby Round
Looking for a fuss-free font? Visby Round’s rounded sans serif style communicates honesty and openness, making it ideal for product and brand logos, mobile apps, digital brochures, and advertisements.
Once reserved for the domain of children’s products, rounded sans serif fonts have experienced a shift away from the world of all things kid-friendly thanks to their ultra-legibility, especially on digital screens and for visually challenged readers. The more mature renditions of the rounded type design that have emerged find the ideal blend of pleasant naïvety and geometric flair.
If you’re looking for a little smooth sans-serif deliciousness, Visby Round’s warm, approachable design is the font for you – especially since Latin and Cyrillic scripts are included. This font looks great next to contrasting, sharp serif typefaces like Artifex CF and Addington CF.
Though these are a few of our favorite new fonts, this is by no means an exhaustive list of what 2022 has in store. If the previous years have been any indication, new and innovative typographic breakthroughs are always around the corner — we just need to keep our eyes peeled.
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