5 Fonts to Never Use Again

We as designers can get stuck in “font ruts”, we repeat fonts over and over again in our designs. I am for sure guilty of this, I love Bebaus Neu and Aktiv Grotesk and use them way too often in my designs.

Every designer has their favorite fonts but some fonts are way to played out. Here are five Sans-Serif fonts that you should never use in your designs again.

1. Helvetica

“Helvetica is a neo-grotesque or realist design, one influenced by the famous 19th century typeface Akzidenz-Grotesk and other German and Swiss designs.[2] Its use became a hallmark of the International Typographic Style that emerged from the work of Swiss designers in the 1950s and 60s, becoming one of the most popular typefaces of the 20th century.[3] Over the years, a wide range of variants have been released in different weights, widths, and sizes, as well as matching designs for a range of non-Latin alphabets. Notable features of Helvetica as originally designed include a high x-height, the termination of strokes on horizontal or vertical lines and an unusually tight spacing between letters, which combine to give it a dense, solid appearance.”

This font is a classic, people have very strong opinions on this font, you either love it, or hate it. I like this font but it is super played out… You should probably not use this font if you want to set yourself apart design wise.

2. Futura

“Futura is a geometric sans-serif typeface designed by Paul Renner and released in 1927. It was designed as a contribution on the New Frankfurt-project. It is based on geometric shapes, especially the circle, similar in spirit to the Bauhaus design style of the period.”

Futura is a Sans-Serif font just like Helvetica. I have used Futura a few times but it is not my Sans-Serif font of choice. It is a very nice looking font, but this font is used in tons of projects, so it is best to stay away from this one.

3. Univers

“Univers was one of the first typeface families to fulfil the idea that a typeface should form a family of consistent, related designs. Past sans-serif designs such as Gill Sans had much greater differences between weights, while loose families such as American Type Founders' Franklin Gothic family often were advertised under different names for each style, to emphasise that they were not completely matching. By creating a matched range of styles and weights, Univers allowed documents to be created in one consistent typeface for all text, making it easier to artistically set documents in sans-serif type. This matched the desire among practitioners of the "Swiss style" of typography for neutral sans-serif typefaces avoiding artistic excesses.”

I love this font, and I love saying it, Univers is so pretty and sounds way cooler than saying universe. This font looks super good, but it is used by everyone, so this font is best to stay away from if you want to be unique.

4. Gotham

“Gotham is a geometric sans-serif typeface family designed by American type designer Tobias Frere-Jones and released in 2000. Gotham's letterforms were inspired by examples of architectural signage of the mid-twentieth century. Gotham has a relatively broad design with a reasonably high x-height and wide apertures.”

Gotham is a very nice thicker font. I used to use this for headlines quite often, but unfortunately it is very popular, so for now it’s time to put Gotham to rest.

5. Roboto

“Roboto is a neo-grotesque sans-serif typeface family developed by Google as the system font for its mobile operating system Android, and released in 2011 for Android 4.0 "Ice Cream Sandwich". The entire font family has been licensed under the Apache license. In 2014, Roboto was redesigned for Android 5.0 "Lollipop".”

This is a fairly new font, but it is used everywhere. It’s not a good idea to use a font that is used on such a prominent operating system like Android is. Unfortunately this font is a no-go like the rest of these.

Even though these fonts look amazing it is best to stay away and choose a different font if you want to stand out and create unique designs. If you find yourself using these font’s a lot and want to change it up check out my article The 5 Best Free Sans-Serif Fonts.