This article includes grotesques and neo-grotesques, sans-serifs, monospaced, duospaced and even some modernist, more unusual serif, sans and display fonts.

ALL fonts are 100% free for both personal and commercial use.

Although grotesques and clear-lined sans-serifs are associated the most with brutalism, used in the right combination and composition almost any typeface would be a good fit. So this article is an extensive but not exhaustive collection of the best free fonts to use in your next brutalist web project.

This list will be kept up to date with new fonts, so be sure to revisit. If you’re a type designer or just know a great font that should be included, just email me at hello@brutalistthemes.com. Thanks & enjoy!

Updates:

Added VCR OSD Mono font in the Monospace/Duospace category

Added Michroma font in the Unusual category

All IBM Plex fonts are now available in Google Fonts! view on Google Fonts

Added Eczar font in the Serif category

Grotesque/Neo-grotesque/Sans-serif

Grotesque fonts, also known sometimes as gothic or grotesk are the earliest sans-serifs, created in late 19th century and early 20th century. They have clear, straightforward lines, limited variation of stroke width, and most of them feature a spurred uppercase G and two-storey lowercase g with ascending ear.

What makes grotesques a perfect match for an unusual design is not only their clear lines and great legibility, but also their rather raw and quirky appearance compared to other sans-serifs.

Bold and Black widths are perfect for headings and they are also ideal for an awesome CSS outline text effect (see code snippet on CodePen) using text-stroke and text-fill-color.

The neo-grotesques, also known as transitionals or realists, include many of the most commonly used sans-serifs. They are less quirky and much more refined than the grotesques, with almost no stroke width variation, and most often a single-storey lowercase g. The most famous neo-grotesque typeface is Helvetica.

from Google Fonts Chivo 8 styles (4 weights + matching italics)

Language support: Latin Extended

this font is used in Glitch theme for body text Download

from FontSquirrel Franklin Gothic FS 4 styles (2 weights + matching italics)

Language support: Latin Extended (see font page for language list) Download

from Google Fonts Archivo 8 styles (4 weights + matching italics)

Language support: Latin Extended, Vietnamese

see also Archivo Narrow Download

from FontSpring Questa Sans Beautiful grotesque typeface

1 free weight (Regular) + 9 premium styles (4 weights + 5 italics)

Language support: Latin Extended (see font page for language list) Download

from IBM Github repo & Google Fonts IBM Plex Sans 16 styles (8 weights + matching italics)

Language support: Support for 110 languages

Update: All IBM Plex fonts are now available in Google Fonts! view on Google Fonts Download

from FontSquirrel Nimbus Sans L 4 styles (2 weights + matching italics)

Language support: Latin Extended (see font page for language list) Download

from Google Fonts Work Sans 9 weights

Language support: Latin Extended In the CodePen snippet above, Work Sans is used in weight 900. Download

from Google Fonts News Cycle 2 weights

Language support: Latin Extended Download

from FontSquirrel UnB 10 styles (2 variants + 5 weights + matching italics)

Language support: Latin Extended (see font page for language list) Download

from FontsArena Rubik 10 styles (5 weights + matching italics)

Language support: Latin Extended, Hebrew, Cyrillic Download

from Google Fonts Karla 4 styles (2 weights + matching italics)

Language support: Latin Extended Download

from FontsArena Hanken Grotesk 10 styles (5 weights + matching italics)

Language support: Latin Extended (see font page for language list)

Previously known as HK Grotesk Download

from FontSquirrel Cooper Hewitt 14 styles (7 weights + matching italics)

Language support: Latin Extended (see font page for language list) Download

from FontSquirrel Vremena Grotesk 8 styles (4 weights + matching italics) Download

from Google Fonts Barlow 18 styles (9 weights + matching italics)

Language support: Latin Extended

see also Barlow Semi Condensed

see also Barlow Condensed Download

from Google Fonts Arimo 4 styles (2 weights + matching italics)

Language support: Latin Extended, Hebrew, Cyrillic Extended, Greek Extended, Vietnamese Download

from Google Fonts Overpass 16 styles (8 weights + matching italics)

Language support: Latin Extended Download

from Google Fonts Didact Gothic 4 styles (2 weights + matching italics)

Language support: Latin Extended, Cyrillic Extended, Greek Extended Download

from Google Fonts Alegreya Sans 14 styles (7 weights + matching italics)

Language support: Latin Extended, Cyrillic Extended, Greek Extended, Vietnamese Download

Monospace/Duospace

Duospaced fonts (also known as duospace fonts) are fixed-width fonts, just like monospaced ones. The difference between monospaced and duospaced fonts is that in duospaced’s case some characters can occupy two widths of the fixed horizontal space instead of just one. This extra horizontal space allows better accommodation of wider glyphs (such as m or w).

For example, BrutalistThemes uses one monospace serif font (Knif Mono) and one duospace font (iA Writer) not used anymore — replaced with Colfax, which is a geometric sans-serif typeface

from DaFont VCR OSD Mono 1 weight

Language support: Latin Extended (see font page for diacritics list) Download

from Google Fonts Space Mono 4 styles (2 weights + matching italics)

Language support: Latin Extended, Vietnamese Download

from IBM Github repo & Google Fonts IBM Plex Mono 16 styles (8 weights + matching italics)

Language support: Support for 110 languages

Update: All IBM Plex fonts are now available in Google Fonts! view on Google Fonts Download

from FontSquirrel iA Writer Duospace 4 styles (2 weights + matching italics)

Language support: Latin Extended (see font page for language list) Download

from FontSquirrel Lekton 3 styles (2 weights + 1 italics)

Language support: Latin Extended (see font page for language list) Download

from Google Fonts Inconsolata 2 weights

Language support: Latin Extended, Vietnamese Download

from Google Fonts Overpass Mono 4 weights

Language support: Latin Extended, Vietnamese Download

from Google Fonts Nanum Gothic Coding 2 weights

Language support: Latin, Korean Download

from Google Fonts Roboto Mono 10 styles (5 weights + matching italics)

Language support: Latin Extended, Cyrillic Extended, Greek Extended, Vietnamese Download

from Google Fonts Cousine 4 styles (2 weights + matching italics)

Language support: Latin Extended, Cyrillic Extended, Greek Extended, Vietnamese, Hebrew Download

from FontSquirrel Nimbus Mono 3 styles (2 weights + 1 italics)

Language support: Latin Extended, Cyrillic (see font page for language list) Download

from FontSquirrel Courier Prime 4 styles (2 weights + matching italics)

Language support: Latin Extended (see font page for language list) Download

Unusual fonts

This section includes fonts that although are classified as sans-serif, monospace, or display, they are non-typical.

from Google Fonts Michroma Sans-serif

1 style

Language support: Latin Download

from Google Fonts Asul Sans-serif

2 weights

Language support: Latin Extended (tested succesfully with diacritics, but only Latin is specified on Google Fonts page)

this font is used in Glitch theme for titles Download

from DaFont Kalenderblatt Grotesk All-uppercase sans-serif

1 style

Language support: Latin + German diacritics (umlauts and ß as ss) Download

from Google Fonts VT323 Monospace

1 style

Language support: Latin Extended, Vietnamese Download

from Google Fonts Press Start 2P Display

1 style

Language support: Latin Extended, Cyrillic Extended, Greek Download

Serif

Serifs are much less used and somewhat more difficult to integrate in a brutalist design. The best fit are OS defaults (if you want to create a website with the raw early 90s look for example), atypical/quirky serifs (like Knif Mono, a monospaced serif font used on this website) or with a more raw, unpolished or spiky look.

If you want to use system defaults and offer support Linux users, please consider that Georgia is not included by default and not all users install the extra package that includes Georgia. The problem is that the default serif fonts in Linux distributions such as Ubuntu are not metrically equivalent with Georgia, and your website will look different (for example a small text in Georgia can become too small and unlegible on Linux). A better alternative would be font-family: Georgia, "Bitstream Charter", Times, "Times New Roman", serif; , because Bitstream Charter is closer metrically to Georgia.

In general, if choosing serif in a brutalist website number of fonts used should be limited to only one.

from Google Fonts Eczar 5 styles (5 weights)

Language support: Latin, Latin Extended, Devanganari Download

from IBM Github repo & Google Fonts IBM Plex Serif 16 styles (8 weights + matching italics)

Language support: Support for 110 languages

Update: All IBM Plex fonts are now available in Google Fonts! view on Google Fonts Download

from Google Fonts Cormorant Garamond 10 styles (5 weights + matching italics)

Language support: Latin Extended, Cyrillic Extended, Vietnamese Download

To be continued 🙂