Font Friday

Humane (free font)

“Humane is super tight for confident headings” written in the headline of a mobile phone in the ration, compressed sans serif Humane. Followed by a quote from the specimen: “Life is not fair to anyone. Still, there is love and compassion. So hang on, 
and enjoy what you've got.”

Sans-serif display typeface

by Rajesh Rajput

7 styles (instances)

7 weights from Thin to Bold

Variable font

1 axis: weight

License

Free 🥳

Best for

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

Specialty

An extra tight sans-serif display typeface for large narrow titles, headings, or bold statements.

My thoughts on Humane

Humane is a striking compressed, sans-serif display typeface by Rajesh Rajput, who you might already know from Thunder. It is super tall, super narrow and has almost no contrast. Making it seem very confident, rational and loud. The variable font provides you with a fluid set of weights, which means you can visually adjust the thickness of the stroke across various sizes, to make is seem monolinear, like I did with 100% example below.

headings in all caps always look good, while creating a tight rhythm, 100% compressed. Text set in Humane Thin, Extra Light and Medium
Humane is a typeface for big, bold statements, encouraging you to go for contrast in size or weight.

Set in capital letters only, Humane looks even stronger, but use this very consciously. Because it only works for very little and very large text. Confidence has to come at a certain dose, or it’s just bragging and noise.

😎 The right amount of confidence is what makes it cool: Bold all caps HEADINGS look confident creating this tight rhythm
😵 Too much! A no-go for longer and smaller text: BUT ONLY FOR A LITTLE TEXT AND ONLY IN LARGER SIZES. otherwise they become long and blurry lines that are  super tiring to decipher, Like here. So use them with care.

The benefits of this compressed typefaces is, that is saves horizontal space, which always is at a premium in mobile or app design. But you’ll have to set it larger, to keep it legible. Also a bit of letter-spacing can be beneficial, especially in all caps. This makes Humane a good choice, if you want something big in a narrow environment.

On a phone, horizontal space is at a premium, 24% less space, at twice the size compared to Roboto Bold
Comparing Humane with Roboto. It uses less horizontal space while being bigger.

I recommend you try this typeface for titles or headings in a striking app design, editorial design or anything else, where you can go big. Play around with it and also be inspired by the beautiful use cases Rajesh shows on Behance.


What do you think? Is Humane something for an upcoming project, or do you have a font recommendation? Tell me in the comments below!

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6 Comments

  1. Oliver, I like this typeface.Humane. It’s strong indeed. Powerful and it fits well in the present time. The right amount of confidence is the right word. One word more can make a difference. So typography knowledge is needed.

    1. Thanks, Matt 🎺! Larken is gorgeous! I’m in love as well. I reached out to the designers and asked if I could feature it on an upcoming FontFriday. So let’s see 😉.

  2. A ha, I get it, I recognize the author’s style in both fonts. It has a similar note. But I enjoy Humane more! ‘S’ is like a wardrobe hanger, slanty ‘a’ is okay, while ‘f’ and ‘t’ are twins.
    I’m thinking which contrasting font would pair well, hm… one that is short like Nunito and Karla but they’re too soft for this striking guy. It’s a hard task, Oliver!

    Naming… how many times do I need to say… People, I will volunteer if needed just that these fonts get the name they deserve! Grrr.

    📯Artistic family, look forward to your concerts. Share some sneak-peakS! It’s gonna be festive I believe.

    1. Wardrobe hanger … 😂 right! I think Karla fits better, since the shapes are also rational, and rather closed, if you want to stay in the same style.

      I’ll share some music once, there is more than a garden hose with an attached mouthpiece and funnel 😅.

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