Following the tradition established in 2022, I am presenting here an overview of some interesting new open-source typefaces that were published on the Google Fonts platform in 2023. I am listing them in the chronologic order of publication.
Commissioner
Commissioner by Kostas Bartsokas is is a low-contrast humanist sans-serif with almost classical proportions. It is a variable font with axes for weight, slant, flair and volume. The font supports Latin, Greek and Cyrillic.
Sofia Sans
Sofia Sans, released in April 2023, is designed by Lettersoup for the capital city of Bulgaria. Four variable fonts, each for a different width (Normal, SemiCondensed, Condensed, and ExtraCondensed) & extended Latin and Cyrillic support.
A huge list of fonts was announced on April 27 2023: Braah One, Bruno Ace, Carlito, Castoro Titling, Instrument Serif, Pathway Extreme, Poltawski Nowy, Sigmar, Vina Sans, Ysabeau, Schibsted Grotesk, Alkatra, Anuphan, Delicious Handrawn.
- Braah One : a display font by India-based typeface and UX designer Ashish Kumar. Latin/Gurmukhi scripts.
- Bruno Ace : techno geometric sans
- Carlito : a font derived from Lato, that is metric-compatible with Calibri.
- Castoro Titling: a titling version of Castoro (a synthesis of aspects of assorted Dutch types from the 16–18th Centuries, produced for Harvard University Press)
- Instrument Serif: a condensed display font (there is also: Instrument Sans, released on Jun 15, 2023) designed by Rodrigo Fuenzalida).
- Pathway Extreme: by Eduardo Tunni, derived from Pathway Gothic One.
- Poltawski Nowy : a digitisation project of a historical typeface from 1928. This project was supported by the Digital Culture 2020 program of the Ministry of Culture and National Heritage.
- Vina Sans: a display font by Nguyen Type inspired by the letters on street signs, flyers, and posters found throughout Vietnam.
- Alkatra : display typeface family comprising of Bangla, Devanagari, Odia and Latin. It “has been designed keeping in mind the inspiration of drawing letters for wall graffitis in Bengal, India”
- Delicious Handrawn: a handwriting font by Agung Rohmat.
Schibsted Grotesk
Schibsted Grotesk, by Bakken & Bæck, Henrik Kongsvoll (Oslo), is a digital-first font family crafted for user interfaces.
In May, Google Fonts released several Japanese fonts:
Cherry Bomb One: by Satsuyako : Its round and modern bounciness has made it appealing for diverse use from title logos and food packaging to children’ s magazines.
Monomaniac by Maniackers Design is a rounded Japanese Kana font with adventurous and unique design.
Released in June 23: Playfair by Claus Eggers Sørensen extends and improves on the existing Playfair Display. It’s now a 3 axes variable font. This means the designer, can choose any combination of width, weight, and optical size contained within these design extrema.
On June 29 2023, 18 new font families were announced. Among them:
Geologica
Geologica is a font by Frode Helland and Sindre Bremnes, of the Norwegian type foundry Monokrom Skriftforlag (that calls itself “a tiny, not-so-cool, and painfully slow, independent publisher of original high quality typefaces”). Geologica is grounded in the humanist genre, but leans assertively into geometric, constructed letterforms. It has a stylistic variation, called sharp, which angle the stem tops, giving them an appealing, minimalistic dynamic.
Palette Mosaic
Palette Mosaic, by Shibuya Font, is constructed from primitive shapes by handicapped artists in collaboration with design students.
Ysabeau
Ysabeau, by Christian Thalmann (the designer of Cormorant). Ysabeau “combines the familiar timeless letterforms of the Garamond legacy with the unencumbered crispness of a clean low-contrast sans serif”
Ysabeau has several variations: Office, Infant, SC.
Explanations regarding the Ysabeau alternate styles:
- Ysabeau Office: Promotes the OpenType features SS02, LNUM, and TNUM to default. This suppresses the contextual use of long and superlong Q, turns the slanted hyphens horizontal, and replaces the old-style figures with tabular lining figures.
- Ysabeau Infant: Promotes SS01, loclBGR, and LNUM to default. This activates single-storey designs for a and g, a script y, a tailed l, Bulgarian Cyrillic forms, and proportional lining figures.
- Ysabeau SC: Promotes SMCP to default. This activates Small Capitals.
Some more Japanese fonts were added in July:
Tsukimi Rounded by Takashi Funayama is a Japanese rounded sans serif Kana font, inspired by Tokyo Tsukiji Type Foundry’s No.3 Kana. Best suited for vertical typesetting.
Chokokutai by Font Zone 108 is a Japanese Kana font inspired by letters engraved on woods and stones. Best suited for impactful titles and/or short lines.
On July 27 2023, another series of fonts was announced: Borel, Dai Banna SIL, Handjet, Lisu Bosa, Narnoor, Noto Sans Vithkuqi, Noto Serif Vithkuqi, REM, Noto Sans Cypro Minoan, Noto Serif Khitan Small Script, Tektur, Victor Mono.
Among those, two outstanding fonts :
REM Sans
REM Sans, by Octavio Pardo. A sans serif font ready for corporate and display uses.
Victor Mono
Victor Mono, by Rune Bjørnerås. A monospaced font with optional semi-connected cursive italics and programming symbol ligatures. Created to meet specific requirements for code and programming.
Bricolage Grotesque
Bricolage, by Mathieu Triay, is a variable font “with French attitude and British mannerisms”. It has a beautiful online specimen.