Typeface Design for Everyday Reading
Geometry restrained for reading
Gratimo Grotesk is a utilitarian neo-grotesque designed by Jakob Runge and Mona Franz in 2021 for TypeMates, developed as a reading-oriented counterpart to the branding-focused Grato Grotesk. Its forms were redrawn from Grato with a robust x-height, open apertures, and generous spacing to suit UI and long-form text at smaller sizes and lower resolutions. The family spans six weights with matching italics and covers more than 270 languages across Latin, Cyrillic, and Greek scripts, with TrueType files manually hinted for screen.
Set in Gratimo Grotesk
Insights
- Italics carry some cursive character shapes while maintaining an overall oblique impression.
- Multiple named stylistic sets allow switching between geometric and humanist forms, including single-storey 'a', double-storey 'g', and contrasting square dots.
- Cyrillic and Greek glyphs were reviewed by external consultants; the family was shortlisted at Modern Cyrillic 2021 and received a special mention at Granshan 2022 for Greek.
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