Typeface · Sans-serif

Grotesque (1880)

The Stephenson Blake Grotesque fonts are a series of sans-serif typefaces created by the type foundry Stephenson Blake of Sheffield, England, mostly around the beginning of the twentieth century.

About Grotesque

The Stephenson Blake Grotesque fonts are a series of sans-serif typefaces created by the type foundry Stephenson Blake of Sheffield, England, mostly around the beginning of the twentieth century. Stephenson Blake's grotesque faces are in the traditional nineteenth-century "grotesque" style of sans-serif, with folded-up letterforms and a solid structure not intended for extended body text. Forming a sprawling series, they include several unusual details, such as an 'r' with a droop, a bruised-looking 'G' and 'C' with inward curls on the right, very short descenders and considerable variation in stroke width, creating a somewhat eccentric, irregular impression.

From the Wikipedia article “Grotesque (Stephenson Blake typefaces)”, licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0.

Using Grotesque in a book

Sans-serif faces work well for headings, captions, children's books and modern nonfiction. For long-form body text in print, most designers still prefer a serif.

Commercial typefaces require a licence that covers embedding in PDFs and ebooks; check the foundry's licence before you publish.

Free alternatives on Google Fonts

Sources & data