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You are here: Home / Typography / The 100 Top Typefaces (in a Huge Sortable Table)

The 100 Top Typefaces (in a Huge Sortable Table)

June 2, 2015 by Douglas Bonneville

top best fontsAn Inspiring Collection of Fonts

FontShop sold a typeface collection called “100 Best Fonts” for a limited time in Germany a little while back. The website for this special promotion generously listed the names of all 100 best typefaces for graphic design with background information in German. When the typeface collection was no longer available, the promotional site itself retained a life of its own, serving as a go-to reference for graphic designers looking for inspiration. The PDF on the promotional website is a beautiful piece of design work, a nice visual resource, and just plain fun to look at even if you don’t read German. (NOTE: You can click the typeface names for more info)

How could this great list be improved? I was interested into what categories and classifications these classic fonts were placed, what foundries they were from, and what interesting insights might avail themselves if I could see all the data in one place. I also wanted one place to see examples of all these great typefaces, so I put those together too. Enjoy, and leave a comment!


Yo, Font-Addict! Make sure to check out The Big Book of Font Combinations. Go grab a copy from Amazon or B&N, or grab the DISCOUNTED ebook PDF digital download version (40% OFF the hardcover retail price!) from the BonFX Store, and stare at all 350+ examples of informative font combinations for web and print. You know you want to!


The 100 Best Fonts (in a huge sortable table)

Rank Typeface Name Date Type Designer Category Classification Foundry

Filed Under: Typography

About Douglas Bonneville

Douglas has been a graphic designer since 1992, in addition to software developer and author. He is a member of Smashing Magazine's "Panel of Experts" and has contributed to over 100 articles. He is the author of "The Big Book of Font Combinations", loves cats, and plays guitar.

Comments

  1. Jacob Cass says

    February 4, 2011 at 11:51 am

    Nice improvement Douglas, thanks for putting together a much more eye pleasing list πŸ˜‰

  2. Eric says

    February 4, 2011 at 5:02 pm

    Where’s comic sans?

  3. Douglas Bonneville says

    February 4, 2011 at 7:08 pm

    Comic Sans goes in a different list πŸ™‚

  4. Sam says

    February 5, 2011 at 4:25 am

    Nice list. But the sentence is wrong. There is no ‘S’. It should be ‘jumps’ over the lazy dog to make it correct (to have all alphabets).

  5. Douglas Bonneville says

    February 5, 2011 at 12:35 pm

    Wow. Just fixed and reexported all the images πŸ™‚ Thanks for the nice catch!

  6. Douglas Bonneville says

    February 6, 2011 at 10:12 pm

    Hey Jacob: If it wasn’t for your article, I’m not sure I would have found the FontShop list. Keep inspiring your legions πŸ™‚

  7. khoir says

    February 9, 2011 at 1:43 am

    i love trajan. I Think Sabon is diversification from Trajan Pro. But Sabon is best to

  8. Raja Sandhu says

    February 10, 2011 at 12:36 am

    no comments or suggestions really – just a thank you!

  9. ambareesha says

    February 10, 2011 at 3:50 am

    nice list.

    ? i didn’t know that the oldness of baskerville.

    ? at start i thought one of my favorite georgia will also appear in this list. finally it was not there.
    still i ? it.

  10. Debashis Nayak says

    February 10, 2011 at 2:53 pm

    Really appreciate your effort making this easy for most of the designers to get the best fonts from the rack. Got few more fonts that I prefer personally but didn’t find in here, could be proposed if the table accommodates more than 100 fonts πŸ™‚

    But truly, love the collection (@Fontshop), Douglas. Cheers !!

  11. Florian says

    February 10, 2011 at 4:32 pm

    β€œThe website […] listed the names of all 100 typefacesβ€”but nothing more”

    Well, 100besteschriften.de is in German only, but have you ever tried clicking the names? There is actually a wee bit more to discover than just the names.

  12. Douglas Bonneville says

    February 10, 2011 at 5:57 pm

    @ Florian: Goodness, I’ve been to that page many times and didn’t know it was clickable. And I’m a full time web-developer! Wow! To non-German passersby there isn’t much indication that there is more to explore!

    I even wrote to FontShop.de about the collection in January and they replied that “…the list that you see on FontFont.de is just free publication that FontShop Germany created”. I assumed that meant the PDF! I just noticed now that you can leave comments, it seems, about each entry. But most of them are blank or have 1 or 2 comments only, and they are in mainly German. What a great idea that escaped most users…What does the German in the top left corner translate into? I wonder if it says “click me…” πŸ™‚

  13. Douglas Bonneville says

    February 11, 2011 at 12:53 am

    @ Florian: text has been updated. Thanks!

  14. Douglas Bonneville says

    February 11, 2011 at 1:51 am

    Just added auto scrolling for each item, no matter how you sort it. Look for the little gray arrows on the far right. Gotta love jQuery.

  15. Almekhlafi Abdulsalam says

    February 13, 2011 at 12:30 pm

    very nice fonts

    ________________.OO._____________
    ________________.OOO.____________.O. * .* ..
    ________________.OOOO.______-.OOO. * .* . *
    ________________.OOOOO._-.OOOO. * .* ..
    _______________.OOOOOOOOOOO. * . * . * .
    __________-.OOOOOOOOOOOOO. * .* ..
    _____.OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO* . * . * . *
    __________-.OOOOOOOOOOOOO. * . * . * ..
    _______________.OOOOOOOOOOO. * . * . * ..
    ________________.OOOOO._-.OOOO. * . *. * .
    ________________.OOOO.______-.OOO. * .* ..
    ________________.OOO.____________.O. * . *. * .
    ________________.OO.__________
    ________________.O.__________

  16. Douglas Bonneville says

    February 13, 2011 at 12:36 pm

    @ Almekhlafi: nice ascii art πŸ™‚

  17. Phyllis says

    February 15, 2011 at 8:46 am

    Beautiful list, thanks for posting! πŸ™‚

  18. daniel says

    March 10, 2011 at 12:48 pm

    great overview! thanks for putting this together.

  19. Douglas Bonneville says

    March 11, 2011 at 11:21 pm

    Thanks Daniel. It was a labor of love πŸ™‚

  20. cmac says

    March 15, 2011 at 9:13 am

    What about Meta? Not my favorite typeface but better definitely in the top 100

  21. Douglas Bonneville says

    March 15, 2011 at 9:52 am

    Meta is in there πŸ™‚ GIve a second look πŸ™‚

  22. cmac says

    March 15, 2011 at 12:34 pm

    Must have tripped on the feet of Walbaum and right over Meta

  23. logostudio says

    March 22, 2011 at 12:18 am

    interesting list …
    very good

  24. Fazreen says

    March 24, 2011 at 11:36 am

    this is my first time visiting your blog. Being a typography fan make me fall in love with your blog..Keep them coming man!

  25. Douglas Bonneville says

    March 24, 2011 at 11:44 am

    I’ve got more in the pipeline πŸ™‚ Thanks!

  26. surdoslav says

    April 19, 2011 at 2:44 am

    OMG i cant find comic sans O_o

  27. Patricia says

    May 14, 2011 at 6:09 pm

    yay! My favourite font, Baskerville, is on the list! πŸ™‚

  28. CreativColor says

    May 22, 2011 at 2:36 am

    a very thank you very much for the sortable list.. πŸ™‚

  29. Copperplate says

    September 12, 2011 at 1:12 pm

    1. At LEAST you had Copperplate Gothic on this list as one of the top fonts of all time.
    2. Clearly it was an omission that Copperplate Gothic Bold was not at the top of the list. Helvetica? Really?
    3. Comic Sans is a joke, we all know that isn’t a real font.

  30. Douglas Bonneville says

    September 12, 2011 at 1:16 pm

    Helvetica is number one, playing it by the numbers! Can’t argue with that!

  31. Marie Christine says

    October 11, 2011 at 3:34 am

    Useful list and good to know about which fonts are mostly used by professionals. Thanks

  32. tcgplayer says

    November 22, 2011 at 9:52 pm

    You should use “t” instead of “T” in the second line. Nice collection. Very much appreciated πŸ™‚

  33. Douglas Bonneville says

    November 22, 2011 at 11:05 pm

    @ tcgplayer: on the “t”, you are absolutely right! I’ll fix that in a revision at some point. thanks for catching that!

  34. Catherine Begle says

    January 7, 2012 at 5:33 pm

    Wonderful list, thank you. But you had Proforma listed as a sans serif and Copperplate Gothic as a sans serif, and by the looks of them, they both have serifs.

  35. Douglas Bonneville says

    January 7, 2012 at 11:59 pm

    Hi Catherine: Proforma was a mistake. Thanks! Copperplate is a little less clear. Gothic means sans-serif, and while it has serifs, they are functionally almost negligible. However, I’m going to list it as a serif now. Thanks for your help!

  36. Douglas Bonneville says

    January 10, 2012 at 12:12 am

    @ tcgplayer

    I have exported the graphics again with the “T” set to a “t”, so that the second line is all lower case.

  37. Douglas Bonneville says

    January 10, 2012 at 12:13 am

    And now, off to work on the top 100 free fonts version of this list!

  38. Sabine says

    March 29, 2012 at 1:19 pm

    English version of the official website by FontShop: http://www.100besttypefaces.com/

  39. Douglas Bonneville says

    March 29, 2012 at 1:59 pm

    Nice! I’ll point to the English site in the intro copy at the top.

  40. Rob says

    June 6, 2012 at 4:52 pm

    Obviously whoever compiled this list has never seen Sansation.

  41. Douglas Bonneville says

    June 6, 2012 at 5:30 pm

    The list is compiled from sales and usage stats from FontShop. There are many reasons a typeface would not be on this. More recent fonts wouldn’t have had time to gather enough steam to make to a list like this. Sansation is fairly new.

  42. Omega says

    September 3, 2012 at 12:38 pm

    Very nice list! Thank you!

  43. Jason Burnett says

    April 12, 2014 at 12:01 am

    I was surprised that Goudy didn’t make the cut. And there are a number of fonts that pretty much shocked me that you included: Reporter not Spring? Hands not Good Dog Cool? I know the list could go on for days and I couldn’t agree more with most of the first 30, but towards the end…I think some newer fonts were given preference over their older counterparts not because they were better, but rather because the list needed to seem up to date/modern. Still, beautiful presentation and an absolute treasure for font selection and inspiration. Great job. Thank you.

  44. John says

    June 20, 2015 at 1:19 am

    This font is also very beautiful,http://graphicriver.net/item/originality-fonttall-tower/11611188

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