Montserrat is a
geometric sans-serif typeface designed by
Argentine
Argentines (mistakenly translated Argentineans in the past; in Spanish (masculine) or (feminine)) are people identified with the country of Argentina. This connection may be residential, legal, historical or cultural. For most Argentines, s ...
graphic designer Julieta Ulanovsky and released in 2011. It was inspired by posters,
signs
Signs may refer to:
* ''Signs'' (2002 film), a 2002 film by M. Night Shyamalan
* ''Signs'' (TV series) (Polish: ''Znaki'') is a 2018 Polish-language television series
* ''Signs'' (journal), a journal of women's studies
*Signs (band), an American ...
and
painted windows from the first half of the twentieth century, seen in the historic
Montserrat neighbourhood of
Buenos Aires.
The project was started in 2010 by Ulanovsky
and was released through the
Google Fonts catalogue in 2011. Montserrat has become increasingly popular among web designers, and it is used on over 15 million websites.
Featuring a large
x-height, short
descenders
''Descenders'' is a cycling video game developed by Dutch studio RageSquid and published by No More Robots. It was released for Linux, macOS, Windows, and Xbox One on 7 May 2019, for PlayStation 4 on 25 August 2020, for Nintendo Switch on 6 No ...
and wide
apertures, this typeface achieves high
legibility even in small sizes.
Montserrat has been developed into a large family, consisting of nine
weights (from Thin to Black), a set of alternate characters, a distinctive Subrayada (
underlined) variant, and support for the
Cyrillic
, bg, кирилица , mk, кирилица , russian: кириллица , sr, ћирилица, uk, кирилиця
, fam1 = Egyptian hieroglyphs
, fam2 = Proto-Sinaitic
, fam3 = Phoenician
, fam4 = G ...
character set.
According to lead designer Ulanovsky, it is a functional and contemporary
alphabet, with uses ranging from
publishing
Publishing is the activity of making information, literature, music, software and other content available to the public for sale or for free. Traditionally, the term refers to the creation and distribution of printed works, such as books, newsp ...
to the
corporative world. She refers to it as a "
geometric typeface with bold optical adjustments."
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Background and development
Ulanovsky began the project in 2010 while she was studying for a
master's degree at the
Faculty of Architecture, Design and Urbanism (FADU),
University of Buenos Aires. She gathered inspiration from the 1920-1950s lettering on street signs, posters,
painted windows, and cafe canopies in the
homonymous neighborhood.
During the course of her studies, she realised that these letterforms were not as common as they once had been, so she felt compelled to "rescue the beauty of urban
typography" through a new font under a
free and open source license.
For its financing, the project was launched in the
Kickstarter website in 2011, and was crowdfunded by anonymous backers. The typeface was published in
Google Fonts the same year.
Eventually, it became the fourth most popular font on the platform, gathering over 2.2 trillion views as of October 2022.
Ulanovsky also stated that "this can be a lifelong project, because
letterforms are continuously being discovered in urban situations. This case is the opposite from common
typography,
characters go from the streets to the computer, it is like
digitizing something completely analogical."
Usage
Montserrat has gained popularity as a free alternative to other similar sans-serif fonts, such as
Gotham or
Avenir. Although mainly seen in
websites and
online media, its high readability and ease of scaling make Montserrat a suitable typeface for printed material, such as brochures, signage and even books (as can be seen in the ''"Científicas de Acá"'' acknowledgements.)
In 2018, with the release of the 2018-2024 Graphic Identity Manual for the
Presidential Office of Mexico, Montserrat became the official font for documentation, presentations and publicity for the
Government of Mexico.
Since January 2021, it also serves as the
Government of Puerto Rico's official typeface for body text and its agencies' logos, used alongside
Cormorant Garamond for headlines.
Montserrat is also a popular choice for
mobile apps and
games
A game is a structured form of play, usually undertaken for entertainment or fun, and sometimes used as an educational tool. Many games are also considered to be work (such as professional players of spectator sports or games) or art (such ...
, including
Idle Supermarket Tycoon and
Snake vs Block.
Variations
The typeface also includes two sister font families: a special
letterforms set called "Montserrat Alternates" and an
underlined one called "Montserrat Subrayada".
In 2015, a set of some
weights and
italics were developed by Ulanovsky, Ale Paul, Carolina Giovagnoli, Andrés Torresi, Juan Pablo del Peral and Sol Matas. In November 2017, the font family was redrawn by Jacques Le Bailly to include a full set of weights, and to adjust the regular set for a better use in longer text.
Unicode support
The character set features over 250
glyphs, covering the
Latin alphabet with a wide range of
diacritics, extended characters and various
symbols
A symbol is a mark, sign, or word that indicates, signifies, or is understood as representing an idea, object, or relationship. Symbols allow people to go beyond what is known or seen by creating linkages between otherwise very different conc ...
.
In late 2017, Julieta Ulanovsky and her collaborators worked together with Maria Doreuli and Alexei Vanyashin for the development of a
Cyrillic
, bg, кирилица , mk, кирилица , russian: кириллица , sr, ћирилица, uk, кирилиця
, fam1 = Egyptian hieroglyphs
, fam2 = Proto-Sinaitic
, fam3 = Phoenician
, fam4 = G ...
character set.
Ulanovsky’s collaborator, Sol Matas, stated that, being unfamiliar with the
writing system, the greatest challenge they faced was to remain faithful to the
Argentine
Argentines (mistakenly translated Argentineans in the past; in Spanish (masculine) or (feminine)) are people identified with the country of Argentina. This connection may be residential, legal, historical or cultural. For most Argentines, s ...
inspiration while designing
characters that looked natural in the Cyrillic context. The Cyrillic expansion culminated in 8,640 new characters for Montserrat across all nine weights.
References
{{Free and open-source typography
Geometric sans-serif typefaces
Typefaces and fonts introduced in 2010