Font Friday #174

Geist (free font)

Mockup of a mobile phone showing the sans-serif typeface Geist. Structured in heading, and a big pull quote, that is set in the monospace font Geist Mono. The heading says: "Geist pairs technology with some personality". The pull quote says: “Let me be gorgeous in peace - Love second music first! -Such a contender - Love second music first! - But you will never come first -Love second music first! 
So just remember - Love second music first!” Yes! That song by Self Esteem puts me
 in the mood to dance! Anyone else?

Monospace, Sans-serif superfamily

from Vercel
designed by Andrés Briganti, Mateo Zaragoza

Variable Font

1 axis: Weight

18 Styles

9 Weights: Thin to Ultra Black
Proportional and Mono

Additional Scripts

Cyrillic

Best for

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

License

Free and Open Source

Specialty

A free, modern, personality-filled take on Helvetica, with compact spacing and softly bent arcs.

Get Geist

My Geist Font Review

We live in sans-serif times, flooded by Roboto-like neo-grotesque typefaces. And I get it, people kinda wanna join the party, belong, but at the same time show that they are not like everyone else. Geist is your free font achieve that, a contemporary take on Helvetica, but with more personality. Let’s discover why.

Delicate weights or bold claims. Geist is tightly spaced. Creating compact paragraphs with its short ascenders and descenders, that look appealing in large font sizes. Working for body text, if you slightly increase the letter spacing. Geist has also a lovely Monospace companion: Geist Mono was actually the starting point, so I should say it has a proportional companion.
Geist looks best for a little copy in larger sizes. Also in Headings it works quite well.

Geist is a custom font made for the Vercle, which is known from the web development framework Next.js. Not surprising for a tech company, Geist Mono was the starting point, followed by its proportional companion, Geist. It conveys a technical, sober impression, but also a certain coolness and sophistication that shows through the recurring softly bent arcs. Besides that, the short ascenders and descenders are characteristic.

The lower case “ä“ shows a tail and square dots. The lower case “c” comes with fairly closes apertures. The lower case “y“ shows a short descender and the lower case "l" a short ascender, while both have softly bent arcs.
Geist’s squarish touch is blend with softly bent arcs

In my opinion, Geist looks gorgeous in larger text sizes, creating compact and appealing paragraphs. But you can also make it work for smaller sizes, if you know how. See in the example below how the same text is so much easier to read, when you increase the weight, letter spacing and activate the right stylistic alternates. It’s not only the typeface, it’s what you make of it.

Showing a sample text of Geist Regular, 0% letter spacing: Make Geist ideal for small text: Increase the weight to Medium, and the letter spacing to 3%. Also make use of stylistic alternates. With the simplified “a” and the more legible “I” you get most out of it.
At default settings, Geist performs poorly in sizes below 16 px.
Showing a sample text of Geist Medium, 3% letter spacing: Make Geist ideal for small text: Increase the weight to Medium, and the letter spacing to 3%. Also make use of stylistic alternates. With the simplified “a” and the more legible “I” you get most out of it.
After some adjustments the same text is more legible and readable.

Now if Geist reminds you of Helvetica, you’re not alone. It has quite some similarities, but also a few relevant differences, which I point them out more clearly to my supporters on Patreon.

Comparing Geist to Helvetica, on Patreon

Unfortunately, there are no italics, which might kill Geist for your body text choice. In that case, you might only use it for you intro and UI text, and pair it with one of my suggestions.

Font Pairings with Geist

Geist is a rational linear sans-serif font. I recommend pairing it with something contrasting for body text or something more striking for headings.

Geist (free)
Geist (free)
  • Headings
  • Copy
  • UI Text
Gelasio (free)
Gelasio (free)
  • Headings
  • Copy
  • UI Text
TT Autonomous
TT Autonomous
  • Headings
Big Shoulders (free)
Big Shoulders (free)
  • Headings

Learn more about pairing typefaces using the Font Matrix.

Thanks again to Mahali, who shared Geist with me. If you spotted a font I should review, let me know!

Typographic power to your inbox

  • Font Friday: I recommend one typeface per week, free fonts included.
  • Type Tuesdays: articles & videos that up your design game.
  • Join 2900+ typography enthusiasts, unsubscribe anytime.
Edition #174, published

3 Comments

  1. Oliver, whenever I see closed apertures, short descenders, upright letters like e and g here, and egg-like shapes, I see a child with eyes wide open staring at me, a little intimidating. 😯 But if we increase the spacing, it’s OK.

    Aaand, I don’t appreciate Helvetica as the rest of the world 🤭

    However, Geist Mono is the legend here.

    Welcome to new subscribers! You’re in for a treat 🤗 2+ years happy subscriber here!

    Reply

    1. Haha, I’m not a Helvetica fan either 😅. Nice description, as so many times, Jana! And yes, Geist Mono is so cool!

      Reply

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *