Sobre el tipo / Mid Century Modern Fonts
Mid Century Modern Fonts: 8 Fonts in the 1950s and 60s Style
Mid century modern fonts come from design between the mid-1940s and the late 1960s: clean sans-serifs, wide squared letters, flared stems and hand-drawn display lettering. This post covers where the style comes from, how to recognize it, and eight fonts in that style. Each has nine weights from Thin to Black and a variable font.
What Makes a Font Mid Century
After the war, designers in Switzerland worked with grids, plenty of white space and plain sans-serifs. This became known as the Swiss or International Typographic Style. Two of its best-known typefaces came out in 1957: Helvetica, drawn by Max Miedinger with Eduard Hoffmann, and Univers, by Adrian Frutiger. In 1958 Hermann Zapf released Optima, a sans-serif with flared stems, and in 1962 Aldo Novarese released Eurostile, with wide, squared letters.
Older typefaces stayed in use too. Futura, from 1927, set the 1959 “Think Small” ads for Volkswagen. At the same time, signs, menus and packaging used a lot of hand lettering, often with brush or marker strokes. To recognize the style, look for these:
- Geometric shapes: a round o and a single-storey a.
- Wide, squared letters.
- Stems that flare out at the ends.
- Hand-drawn display letters with ball or tapered ends.
8 Mid Century Modern Fonts
Scal, a Futura-style geometric sans
Scal is the closest in this list to Futura. The a and o are round, the A, M, N, V and W have pointed tips, and the C, G and S have sharp cuts. The light weights work for longer text, the heavy weights for headlines. For magazines, fashion labels and restaurants.
Test Scal →Anky, a clean geometric sans
Anky is a geometric sans-serif with a round o and closed apertures, so letters like c, e and s curl in at the ends. Stylistic sets have a second a and other forms for G, R, U and Y. For headlines and text, signs and editorial work.
Test Anky →Desk, a wide sans
Desk is an extended sans-serif: its o is wider than it is tall. The wide, squared letters are close to the 1960s lettering of Eurostile. A stylistic set has second forms for A, G, M, O and Q. For tech, beauty and fashion headlines.
Test Desk →Byrl, a wide geometric sans
Byrl has wide geometric capitals, an o wider than it is tall, and ascenders that stop at cap height. In Thin a title looks light, in Black one word fills a line. For logos and headings in tech, fashion and sports.
Test Byrl →Soya, a wide sans with cut-off ends
Soya has wide, boxy letters, and many strokes end in a straight cut. Stylistic sets have other forms for A, G, M, O, Q and W. The light weights look elegant, the heavy weights bold. For art, design and fashion brands.
Test Soya →Ques, a wide sans with flared stems
Ques is an extended sans-serif with high contrast, and its stems flare out into small, serif-like tips. Hermann Zapf’s Optima, from 1958, uses flared stems in a similar way. For beauty and fashion labels, florists and stationery.
Test Ques →Cesty, a rounded display font
Cesty has thick curves, thin joins and rounded, tapered ends, close to the hand-drawn headlines of 1950s ads and menus. It has swash capitals and four styles each of a and g. For logos, posters, packaging and menus.
Test Cesty →Quik, a marker font
Quik has the shapes of letters written with a marker. Hand lettering like this was common on mid century signs and price tags. It has three forms of a and e and seven ampersands. For food, crafts, music and sports brands.
Test Quik →How to Use Mid Century Fonts
- Pair a display font with a sans. Use Cesty or Quik for a name or headline, and Scal or Anky for the text.
- Use the wide fonts for short words. Desk, Byrl and Soya take a lot of space per letter, so they work best for logos and headings of one to three words.
- Choose colors from the period. Orange, mustard, teal and olive on an off-white ground are common in mid century design.
For more, see the midcentury fonts collection, our posts on retro fonts, Bauhaus fonts and geometric sans-serif fonts.