FontShop supports typographic diversity. There will always be a place for classic type in contemporary design, and it’s safe and easy to rely on the same old standards, but using type that is underused is often the best way to stand out in an increasingly crowded and homogeneous design landscape.

With that in mind, we hope to lift the curtain on a few of the many interesting, usable, well-made typefaces beyond those standbys we all know and love. In addition to our staff recommended alternatives to common fonts, we’re asking our Twitter followers for the typefaces they wish they would see more often. The responses are flowing in and we’re answering their wish here with much-deserved exposure and examples of those fonts “in use”.

In addition to these samples, be sure to bookmark the page of Favorite Underused Fonts for a comprehensive and evolving list of results.

FF Nexus

Built on Martin Majoor’s three typefaces, one form principle, FF Nexus is three families — a serif, slab serif, and sans — derived from a single design concept. The monospaced FF Nexus Typewriter plays well with the others, too. This breadth of options, combined with OpenType features (such as built-in small caps, alternate glyphs, and optional swashes) make FF Nexus an extremely versatile type system for editorial and corporate design.

FF Tisa

This unique serif has a tone that suits the casual fare of magazines and advertising as well as the more serious content of newspapers and annual reports. The Pro version adds support for Turkish and Central European languages. Learn more about the extensive development and research behind FF Tisa at its dedicated Behance page.

Chaparral

Amid Carol Twombly’s popular classics like Adobe Caslon, Myriad, Lithos, and Trajan is this unassuming humanist slab serif. With its four weights in each of five optical sizes, and a contemporary flavor that feels as new as when it was released nearly ten years ago, Chaparral is exceptionally usable like any of Twombly’s more common faces.

Eidetic Neo

Rodrigo Cavazos describes the original sketches of Eidetic as “a way of coming to terms with traditional typography that I’d learned to hate as a production artist.” He initially intended to meet classicism halfway, but the exploration proved to be too compelling and he quickly crossed that line, and then many others. Eidetic Neo is an improvement on that first release, produced in collaboration with Zuzana Licko at Emigre. Despite its distinctive quirks, Eidetic Neo is a fully functional text face with a full set of figures, fractions, and small caps.

Dalliance Roman, Dalliance Script, Flourishes

Born from a remarkable piece of handwriting on a late 18th-century map, Dalliance evokes a period and style that no other typeface can seem to capture. Frank Heine’s exhaustive work produced a roman and two script typefaces that can take on a variety of forms thanks to ligatures, ending swashes, ornaments, and even small caps.

Burin Sans

An oft forgotten gem in Monotype’s popular Engravers series, Burin Sans is derived from the inscriptions of a small, round engraving device. The soft ends and light, monolinear weight make Burin Sans a pleasant, friendly alternative to more strict geometric faces. The caps have a straightforward structure, but there is personality to be found in the slightly jaunty lowercase.

FF Kievit

Maybe it’s time to move on from Gill Sans and Univers. Neutral and versatile, with a large range of weights and broad language support (CE, Greek, and Cyrillic in the Pro version) FF Kievit has all the qualities of an essential workhorse. For a solution with sans and serif companions, see the FF Milo family, also by Mike Abbink.

ITC Mendoza

One of the great underappreciated book faces is José Mendoza y Ameida’ls namesake. Strong but graceful, ITC Mendoza achieves its designer’s goal of maintaining the “sensitivity of the hand’s gesture”. While most calligraphic serifs struggle to succeed as versatile text faces, this one thrives in both long texts and headlines.

FF Bau

Helvetica these days, a classic which somehow seems to grow in popularity despite its omnipresence. But if you seek something with an older pedigree, you can’t do better than FF Bau. While Helvetica is cold and calculated, its roots lie in much quirkier material, the earliest direct ancestor first introduced around 1880. Christian Schwartz updated the family for contem­porary needs without ratio­nal­izing away the spirit and warmth of the original.

Slate

Ever wish Frutiger or Myriad had small caps or oldstyle figures? Modern typographic needs call for a sans serif with a complete character toolset, and Slate has everything required to set clean, readable text.

Karmina

Thanks to the recent addition of a sans, TypeTogether’s sturdy, multilingual Karmina joins the small but growing list of families with sans and serif companions.

Bourgeois

Jonathan Barnbrook and Marcus McCallion revised early 20th century letterforms with their contemporary touch. Four weights, two widths, and a large selection of alternate glyphs make Bourgeois one of Virus Fonts’ most versatile families and its variety of unusual letterforms make it a head-turner.

Reporter

Along with Loupot and Coptek below, Reporter is one of the many underappreciated but delightful scripts recalling the vibrant hand lettering of 1930s–’40s advertising and poster design.

FF Tartine

Loupot

Coptek

FF Parable

FF Legato

Versa

Neuzeit Grotesk

Folio

Venus

Tempo

FF Sanuk

FF Super Grotesk

Ambroise

Wainwright

Ecliptica