Display, Sans-serif typeface

from Type Salon
designed by Alja Herlah, Krista Likar

Variable Font

2 axes: Weight, Slant

15 Styles

5 Weights: Light to Heavy
with matching obliques

Additional Scripts

Arabic, Cyrillic, Greek, Hebrew

Best for

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

License starting

around $20 (one style)
around $260 (bundle)

Specialty

This bold, vibrant display font with striking contrast and seamless multi-script harmony is perfect for your standout headlines.

My Spektra Font Review

When I first spotted Spektra I was immediately drawn to it. Its strong contrast creates a dense, almost ornamental typographic impression. Paired with the daring slanted and backlanted style, it made me want to review it even more. But besides these features, something much more special was revealed when I took Spektra for an extensive test drive.

Loving Spektra because of the wild contrast, the cool slant and the backslant style.
Vivid and striking – Spektra is made for large text

One peculiarity is, when Spektra gets bolder, it also becomes wider. This way, the narrow inner space is maintained across all weights, though the light styles can be harder to read at smaller sizes.

Showing all styles of Spektra from Light to Black in Upright, Slanted and Backlanted
Light weights are narrower, heavier weights are bolder. The counter space remains somehow consistent.

This is remarkable because it allows you to create intense typographic patterns. And I feel like these look especially convincing in all caps. The example below could already be a poster design.

Similar inner space across weights.
Same type size in three different weights. Light, Heavy and Regular.

But the one thing that really surprised me with Spektra is how homogenous it seems across the five scrips it covers: Greek, Cyrillic, Hebrew, Arabic and Latin. At first glance, the example below does not reveal how diverse these scripts actually are. It seems more like a typographic pattern, and that’s where its beauty lies.

It’s amazing how five very diverse scripts play together so well.
At first glance, the diversity of different scripts almost disappear, as they work together in harmony.

Latin, Greek and Cyrillic script have many related shapes and combine more subtly. However, Arabic and Hebrew are very different from them and normally stand out more. You can better appreciate how well Spektra works when comparing it to Noto Sans. In Noto Sans, the Arabic and Hebrew text immediately draw attention.

Here in Noto Sans the Arabic & Hebrew text stands out much more.
Noto Sans Bold Condensed
It’s amazing how five very diverse scripts play together so well.
Spektra

So if you’re looking for a special, flashy headline font, give Spektra a try. Have fun exploring it for your titles, posters, or logotypes, maybe across several scripts even.

Font Pairings with Spektra

Spektra is a quite rational, linear sans-serif display typeface. Pair it with quite similar Magnet for body text, or something else from my recommendations.

Spektra
Spektra
  • Headings

Learn more about pairing typefaces using the Font Matrix.


How do you like Spektra? Tell me in the comments, also what cool typeface I should review next!

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2 Comments

  1. Hi Oliver,
    Love your Font Fridays 🙂

    Would be interesting to hear your take on “Sarabun” – available for free in the Google fonts library.

    I find this typeface extremely easy to read. To me, the legibility is similar to our boring old friend Times New Roman.
    I especially like the light version for body/copy text.
    A bit unsure of what to pair it with for the headings. Would a Geometric font like Poppins Medium/Semibold work?

    Fun fact: Sarabun is considered the “National font” of Thailand (both Thai and Latin version) used in all formal documents.

    Cheers,
    Dan

    1. Oh, thanks for the suggestion, Dan! I like that it’s Thai and Latin script! From its construction it is a quite dynamic typeface, pairing it whit a geometric one might work, it might be different enough, but it depends on the case. I’ll look into it!

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