Our Favourite Premium fonts
There have been countless articles on free fonts and their pairings.
When it comes to premium fonts, there are hardly any lists. If there is, it’s vague. It’ll suggest “Baskerville”. Where can you get it? How much does it cost? Is it in the Typekit subscription?
What’s worse is when you find there’s no one Baskerville. There’s ITC Baskerville, Baskerville URW and the free Libre Baskerville.
So while everyone is using Circular (hello dribbble!), we though we’d write about our favourite fonts.
That’s great. But aren’t fonts expensive?
Yes, they are.
The complete Helvetica Neue family would cost around $1.4k. You could buy a MacBook for that price which has it preinstalled. But there’s an even better way: subscription services. They give you access to their vast font libraries — all weights — at a fraction of a price.
Most of the fonts covered here are from the two subscription services: Typkit ($50 a year) and Monotype Library Subscription ($9.99 a month).
Freight Display Pro
Freight Display Pro, made by Phil’s Fonts Foundry, is a serif font that works well for headings.
An example you can see of this in use is Focus Labs. It’s paired with their two other fonts beautifully
You can get this font on Typekit
ITC New Baskerville / Baskerville URW
You might’ve heard about it. It’s italics are the most beautifully constructed ones. It is the font that gave way to modern serif fonts like Didot and Bodoni. And it’s most beautiful modern revival got to be the ITC Baskerville.
ITC Baskerville is available in Monotype Library Subscription while Baskerville URW would be for the Typekit users.
Harmonia Sans
Harmonia Sans is like Futura, just much more friendlier. It has a greater x-height (the height of the lowercase x letter) and no pointy edges which make it suitable for paragraphs.
Harmonia Sans is available in Monotype Library Subsription. A typekit alternative would be Sofia Pro.
Founders Grotesk
One of the best fonts of Klim Type Foundry, Founder’s Grotesk is a sans-serif that looks powerful on headings. It also has a text variant designed specially for small sizes.
You can buy the complete family for $300, or a single weight + italic for $75 on Klim Type Foundry’s site.
Linotype Didot
If you’re thinking premium, Didot is way to go. Used by countless premium brands, Didot has been the most popular serif typeface for headings.
Linotype Didot is available in Monotype Library Subscription; Typekit alternative: Essonnes Display.
Some more premium fonts resources you may like
- Van Schneider’s favorite font foundries
- Typekit’s curated lists
- Serif Beauty and Sans Beauty by Marina Matijaca
