Font Friday #165

Easy Grotesk

Easy Grotesk brings joy to sturdy letters. The sans-serif typeface Easy Grotesk shown on a mobile phone in the headline, body text and bottom navigation. A big pull quote in the middle shows a part of the lyrics from the song Mustang by the Kings of Leon’s new record “Can we please have fun”: “There’s a Mustang in the city! And it’s calling me out. Are you a mustang or a kitty? What are you all about?”

typeface

from TypeMates
designed by Alexander Rütten, Olivia Wood

Variable Font

2 axes: Weight, Slant

14 Styles

7 Weights: Extra Light to Black
with matching italics

Best for

  • Headings (display text)
  • Long reading text (body text)
  • User Interfaces (functional text)

License starting

around $50 (one style)
around $300 (bundle)

Specialty

A playful sans-serif typeface that balances out wonky and stable for bold projects that take it … easy.

Get Easy Grotesk

My Easy Grotesk Font Review

One letter was all it took to win my heart. It’s the … well let me tell you later. First, you need to be introduced to Easy Grotesk. This wonky, weird, sans-serif typeface balances overall confidence with quirky details. Versatile, but certainly not for everyone.

Embracing the weird. Easy Grotesk gives your project a playful vibe, showing its distinct, quirky letter shapes confidently. Some of the characters seem to have their own gravity, but still play together well with their companions. Clean ’n’ Lean Italics. Blocky dense capitals. With the alternate lower case “l” activated, Easy Grotesk works fairly well for small text, also UI text. Is this the typeface for your next hip app or web design?
Working for large and small text. Compared to the wonky upright style, the italics seem clean and lean. Mainly because the wild “a” is simpler there.

The typeface seems to be inspired by grotesque typefaces – like Helvetica or Roboto – but it shows this in a joyful, almost comic way. Easy Grotesk is unusually top-heavy. You can observe this by examining the extended terminals of the “S” and the lower case “a” – my favorite character. It is so charmingly clumsy and almost seems to fall over. Luckily, the other characters balance it out.

Extending terminals at the lower case “s” and “a”, slight contrast at the lower case “a”. Upper case R with “R” fairly wide lobe and a slightly curved leg. Circular upper case “Q” geometric touch and very straight tail.
These details make Easy Grotesk so playful, while some characters are surprisingly sober and straight.

There are several ways to change the voice of Easy Grotesk, by activating certain stylistic alternates. Tone it down a bit by activating the simpler uppercase “R” and lower-case “a” and “g”. Or go even krazier with that unusual “k”.

Rocking really great. Showing stylistic alternates of upper-case “R”, “G” and lower case “g”, “a”, “l”, and “k”.
Adjust Easy Grotesk’s to your needs using the stylistic alternates.

To me, the Regular weight of the body text seems a bit too light. You can see it in my phone example at the top of the page. So if you are using Easy Grotesk for a fair amount of copy or UI text, make sure to increase the weight. How it looks in comparison to its closest Google Font, supporters on Patreon can find out.

See the closes Google Font to Easy Grotesk, on Patreon

Font Pairings with Easy Grotesk

Easy Grotesk is a linear, quite rational sans-serif typeface. It also shows geometric influences. If you want something stricter, for UI text, pair it with narrow Action Text.

Easy Grotesk
Easy Grotesk
  • Headings
  • Copy
  • UI Text
Action Text
Action Text
  • Headings
  • Copy
  • UI Text
Self Modern
Self Modern
  • Headings
  • Copy

Learn more about pairing typefaces using the Font Matrix.

What do you think? Is easy Easy Grotesk something for your next project? Tell me in the comments!

Edition #165, published

2 Comments

  1. Very unexpected character set, Oliver.One of the most interesting fonts on Font Friday!

    This can be the – star of the show – make someone’s brand identity if applied well.

    Reply

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